Politics of Frustration: The United States in German Naval Planning, 1889-1941 0316358908, 9780316358903

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POLITICS OF FRUSTRATION

Books by Holger H. Herwig T

1890-1918: A Social and Political History P o litics of F r u s t r a t io n : The United States in German Naval Planning 1889-1941

he

G erm an N

aval

O f f ic e r C orps

POLITICS OF FRUSTRATION The United States in German Naval Planning, 1889— 1941

HOLGER H. HERWIG

Little, Brown and Company—Boston-Toronto

C o p y r ig h t

© 1976

by

Holger H. Herwig

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. NO PART OF THIS BOOK M A Y BE REPRODUCED IN ANY FORM OR BY ANY ELECTRONIC OR MECHANICAL M EANS IN ­ CLUDING INFORMATION STORAGE AND RETRIEVAL SYSTEMS WITHOUT PERMISSION IN WRITING FROM THE PUBLISHER, EXCEPT BY A REVIEWER WHO M AY QUOTE BRIEF PASSAGES IN A REVIEW.

FIRST EDITION

T 04/76 The author is grateful to the following publishers for permission to reprint previ­ ously copyrighted materials: The University of Chicago Press, for “Prelude to Weltblitzkrieg” by Holger H. Herwig, as published in Journal of Modern H istory, Vol. 43, N o. 4, December 1971. Copyright © 1971 by The University of Chicago. The Historian, for the article “The Failure of Imperial Germany’s Undersea Of­ fensive Against World Shipping” by Holger H. Herwig and David Trask, Vol. 33, N o. 4, August 1971. Copyright © 1971 by Phi Alpha Theta. Central European H istory, for the article “Admirals versus Generals: The War Aims of the Imperial German N avy 1914-1918” by Holger H. Herwig, Vol. 5, Sep­ tember 1972. Copyright © 1972 by Emory University. Militärgeschichtliche Mitteilungen^ for the article “Naval Operations Plans Be­ tween Germany and the United States of America 1898-1913” by Holger H. Herwig and David Trask, 2/1970, S 5-32. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING IN PUBLICATION DATA

Herwig, Holger H Politics of frustration. Bibliography: p. Includes index. i. United States — Foreign relations — Germany. 2. Germany — Foreign relations — United States. 3. United States — History, Naval. 4. Germany — History, Naval. 5. European War, 1914-1918 — Causes. 6. W orld War, 1939-1945 — Causes. I. Title. E183.8.G3H44 327.73r043 75-43997 ISBN 0-316-35890-8 Designed by Susan Windheim Published simultaneously in Canada by Little, Brown & Company (Canada) Limited PRINTED

IN

THE U N IT E D

S T A T E S OF A M E R I C A

For Lorraine

“Contrariwise,” continued Tweedledum, “if it was so, it might be; and, if it were so, it would be; but as it ain’t, it ain’t. T hat’s logic.” — L e w is C arroll , Through the Looking Glass

Author’s Note A NUMBER OF PEOPLE HAVE GIVEN GENEROUSLY OF THEIR TIME AND KNOWL-

edge to this study. First and foremost, I would like to thank Professor Andreas Hillgruber of Cologne University for discussing this subject with me during several visits, and for making available to me then un­ published manuscripts dealing with this topic. Dr. Jost Diilffer of the same university was kind enough to share his work on the “Raeder” period prior to the outbreak of the Second W orld War. Professor David F. Trask of the State University of New York at Stony Brook has collaborated with me on a number of specialized researches on GermanAmerican naval history, and has unselfishly shared his own research on the United States Navy during the First W orld War. Several of my colleagues at Vanderbilt University, especially J. Leon Helguera and Melvyn P. Leffler, read segments of this manuscript and rendered critical evaluations. Their judicious comments greatly benefited this study; the shortcomings remain my own. I would like to express my gratitude to the Alexander von Hum­ boldt-Stiftung in Bonn, West Germany, for financial aid, to the Vander­ bilt University Research Council for extending summer fellowships and grants-in-aid, and to Roger Donald of Little, Brown and Company for his generous encouragement. Finally, I owe a great deal to my undergraduate students, who by the simple devices of friendship and honesty have buoyed me up over the past three years. H. H. H. San Marcos, California July ip75

Contents Introduction: The Newcomers pa r t

i

T

he

and the

W

U

3

e l t p o l it ik o f

n it e d

S ta t e s

W

il h e l m

ii

(1889-1906)

11

1 Competition in the Pacific (1889-1899) Samoa I (1889) The American “Danger” Spain’s Heirs Fall Out (1898) Samoa II (1899)

13 14 18 24 36

2 Contingency W ar Planning: Berlin (1899-1900) Invasion Strategies I (1898-1900) Thoughts for a N ew Age (/ January 1900) Invasion Strategies II ( 1900-1902)

40 42 54 57

3 The W ay West ( 1901-1906) German Bases in Latm America? The Monroe Doctrine Venezuelan Blockade ( 1902-1903) Operations Plan III ( 1903-1906)

67 68 72 76 85

4 Contingency W ar Planning: Washington (1900-1913)

93

pa r t

11

T

he

G reat W

ar

(1914-1918)

111

5 Germany and the United States at W ar (1917-1918) The Calculated Risk (9 January 1917) The War at Sea (1917) German War Aims and the United States The War at Sea ( 1918) Epilogue

113 116 126 133 138 150

6 United States Strategy (1917-1918)

152

[ ix 1

Contents part hi the

U

T

he

n it e d

T

h i Rd

S tates

R e ic h

and

(1933-1941)

173

7 Background: Hitler, Raeder, and the United States Hitler’s View of the United States National Socialist Foreign and Colonial Policies Hitler Raeder and Sea Power

175 179 184 188

8 Once More W orld W ar (1939-1941) Hitler and Raeder at War 1939-1940) Roosevelt Acts 1940) On the Brink (1941)

196 197 219 227

9 Germany and the United States at W ar (1941-1945)

235

,

,

(

part

iv

(

C o n c l u s io n : P a t t e r n s

of

C o n f l ic t

Chapter Notes Select Bibliography Index

253

262 291 305

Map: The 1899 Invasion Plan

[x]

50

POLITICS OF FRUSTRATION

Introduction: The Newcomers T o success through breeding. M otto of the German N avy League

24 a pr il 1971 t h e N ew York Times reported in a fr o n t - page story the discovery of a German contingency war plan to invade the United States around the turn of the century. Based on an article that Professor David F. Trask and I published in 1970 in the West German historical journal Militärgeschichtliche Mitteilungen, the Times story evoked con­ siderable response, ranging from the enthusiastic support of New Eng­ landers who knew of the numerous German spy and reconnaissance activities in their area to the indignant protests of retired German naval officers, some of whom had served both Kaiser Wilhelm II and Adolf Hitler. Later, in The German Naval Officer Corps: A Social and Political History 1890-1918 (Oxford 1973), I analyzed the social, political, re­ ligious, and educational characteristics of the Imperial German naval of­ ficer corps, and in working on that analysis I came across repeated state­ ments by German naval leaders on American affairs and particularly the United States armed forces. These experiences have led me to develop this extended study of German-American relations as shown in German naval policies toward the United States in three crucial periods between 1889 and 1941, which provides broader background and perspective for the arguments in the above-mentioned article. The study of German-American relations has found surprisingly few takers, with the notable exception of Alfred Vagts. It is only in the wake of the National Socialist holocaust and the American experience in Vietnam that scholars have begun to plow this rich field. The relative glut of investigators over the last two decades arose partly because nuon

[3 ]

Introduction: The Newcomers merous archives only recently openec} their records for this period. For example, the British have now made available those documents relating to the entry of the United States into the Second W orld W ar; the American “Black” war plan of 1913-1914 remained classified until the 1950s. And since about 1967 the Bundesarchiv-Militärarchiv (Federal Military Archive) in Freiburg, W est Germany, has allowed scholars ac­ cess to the holdings of the former Marinearchiv (Navy Archive), now returned to W est Germany by the British and Americans. Numerous sets of personal papers belonging to important naval leaders were deposited in Freiburg after 1945, and they supplement the records of official govern­ ment agencies. This wealth of material has made research for this study feasible. Unfortunately, the German army files did not fare so well: al­ most all were destroyed during air raids on Berlin, especially in 1942 and 1945. This book in no way presumes to represent a general history of German-American relations between 1889 and 1941. Rather, it is a com­ posite of three studies on critically important historical periods: the era of colonial rivalry from 1889 to 1905; the German-American conflict from 1917 to 1918; and the National Socialist period to 1941, culminating in the German declaration of war against the United States. In essence, this work is an essai, an attempt to unearth some of the basic themes that run through these three time spans. I have tried to address myself espe­ cially to the currently popular notion of continuity, that is, the con­ tinuity — or lack thereof — of ideas and concepts from the Wilhelmian to the Hitlerean periods. A number of questions emerge at once. W hy did Germany and the United States enter the naval race at almost identi­ cal moments in the 1890s? W hat were these newcomers seeking in far distant areas such as Samoa and the Philippines? W hat were Germany’s intentions in the Western Hemisphere? W hy did the Reich opt for un­ restricted submarine warfare in January 1917, knowing full well that such a policy would put her on a collision path with the American republic? W hy did American naval officers — led by Admiral George Dewey — view Germany as their most probable enemy? And finally, what prompted Adolf Hitler in December 1941 to repeat what he con­ sidered to have been the cardinal error of the First W orld W ar: conflict with the United States? In answering these questions, I have knowingly chosen to omit certain vital areas and topics. These are self-evident and I leave them for future scholars. N or have I opted to investigate the creation of the modern German and American navies. And I might also point out that my major concern has been the study of Germany’s attitude toward the United States, and specifically what role the latter assumed in German strategic [4 ]

Introduction: The Newcomers deliberations in the twentieth century; the sections dealing with the American republic are designed first and foremost as background material to complement the German side of the picture. On the other hand, the issue of imperialism consumes much of the following. The revisionist, or “New Left,” interpretation of American history by, among others, William A. Williams, Walter LaFeber, Lloyd C. Gardner, Thomas J. McCormick, and Bruce M. Russett has found its German counterpart in Volker R. Berghahn, H. Böhme, Fritz Fischer, Immanuel Geiss, Dirk Stegmann, Hartmut Pogge von Strandmann, and, most frequently, Hans-Ulrich Wehler. Wehler especially has depicted the period prior to 1914 as one dominated by social imperialism and colonial­ ism. The former was designed, according to him, to suppress reform movements at home, and the latter to provide lucrative and guaranteed outlets for German industrial production. Winfried Baumgart has vehe­ mently attacked this interpretation — which has been extended back into the pre-Wilhelmian era — and thereby launched a debate among German scholars that threatens to rival that between Fritz Fischer and the late Gerhard Ritter over the origins of the First W orld W ar, both in quan­ tity of books and articles produced and in personal recriminations. As a result, I have had of necessity to take up this overly plowed and highly emotional field, but only to the extent that it concerns German-American relations. It has not been my intent to take away completely the economic interpretation of imperialism, but to point out that other factors were also at least equally at work. Trade surpluses, armaments windfalls, mer­ chant shipping monopolies, and territorial aggrandizement are integral components of the larger issue. And not to be overlooked is the crude Darwinistic “survival of the fittest” argument put forth, for example, by Chancellor Bernhard von Biilow: “The question is not if we want to colonize, but that we must colonize whether we want to or not.” The Kaiser’s new “Bismarck” equated colonial with national issues and called for an end to the practice whereby Germans had become the “cultural fertilizer” for other nations, particularly the United States. Colonization, Biilow concluded, was the very “struggle for one’s survival.”1 Moreover, one also has to include in any study of imperialism matters such as na­ tional pride, prestige, expansion, military and naval strategy (bases), international power politics, and the like. General Lothar von Trotha, the governor of German South-West Africa, at the turn of the century rendered his analysis of colonialism: “It was neither political because we lacked the enthusiasm, nor economic because initially we lacked the capital. . . . It was simply pure speculation.”2 The combination of all the factors outlined above, I suggest, makes up the complex phenomenon [5 ]

Introduction: The Newcomers of late nineteenth-century imperialism N or should one overlook that much of this analysis is made possible primarily through the benefit of historical hindsight. The Kaiser’s “W orld Marshal,” Count Alfred von Waldersee, wrote shortly before his departure for China to suppress the so-called Boxer rebellion in July 1900: “W e are supposed to pursue Weltpolitik [world politics]. If I only knew what that is supposed to be.”3 Finally, it should not be forgotten that according to the Imperial German constitution of 14 April 1871, the Kaiser was accorded virtually a free hand in determining the Reich’s foreign and military policies. In other words, this study deals first and foremost with the ruling circles in Germany: the Kaiser, the Foreign Office, and the various branches of the military and naval establishments; to wit, the people who formulated and often dictated Germany’s foreign and military postures vis-à-vis the United States. I therefore consciously accept the risk of incurring the wrath of my colleagues for not including in this work the attitudes of the various Germans who were pro-American, who desired no colonial expansion and much less confrontation, who sought arbitration for over­ seas disputes through the International Court at The Hague — in short, all the “good” Germans. The Hitler period was hardly known for its democratic procedure or collegial decision-making process; hence here once more the primary focus has of necessity to rest with the Führer and his military and naval paladins. And what about the two main protagonists of this book? A cursory glance at Germany and the United States in 1889 reveals a surprising degree of at least commercial equality. While the Reich handled 11.1 percent of the world’s trade, the United States was not far behind with 10. i percent. The total of exports and imports of the two nations was roughly the same at around $1.5 billion per annum. Whereas American exports to Germany amounted to 9 percent ($68 million) of her total, Germany’s exports to the United States came to 11 percent ($82 million) of hers. N or were the populations of the two lands overly dispropor­ tionate in 1889: the United States consisted of 61.8 million people and Germany of 46.9 million, while the annual rate of population increase by the turn of the century was 1.9 percent in the U.S. and 1.5 percent in Germany. Moreover, Berlin and New York each housed about 1.5 mil­ lion people, though other American cities took a decided advantage with 1.1 million for Chicago and 1 million for Philadelphia, while the Reich could counter only with 0.6 million for Hamburg and 0.3 million for Munich. Boston, the object of much German strategic speculation and planning, in 1889 possessed a population of 448,000. The sheer physical dimensions of the United States, of course, m

Introduction: The Newcomers greatly outdistanced those of Germany. The Reich’s 208,732 square miles were paltry in comparison with America’s 2,974,000. Yet much of the republic’s land was uninhabited, and this accounts for the tremendous diversity in population density: around 21 people per square mile in the United States and 225 in Germany. The size variable also accounts for the much larger railroad network in the U.S. (approximately 170,000 miles) than in the Reich (27,000 miles). And in terms of natural resources and industrial capacity, the United States was just beginning to tap her vast potential. By 1889 she outproduced Germany in coal 140 million to 85 million metric tons, and in pig iron 9.4 million to 4.5 million metric tons. On the other hand, the Reich’s manpower drain to the United States was rapidly coming to an end. Overall annual German emigration had by 1889 dropped to 90,250 people, of whom 84,424 (93.5 percent) went to the United States, from a high in 1881 of 210,547; by 1900 emigration was to decline further to a relative trickle of about 30,000 per annum. Never­ theless, in 1890 there were 2.784 million German-born residents in the United States, and this figure sufficed to prompt German economists and popular writers to clamor for overseas colonies — particularly in South America — in order to halt completely this “cultural fertilization” of the United States. Neither country in 1889 possessed a navy of great importance, and both lay well behind Great Britain, France and Russia in this respect. Germany had twenty-six elderly armored vessels and twenty-three small cruising ships either in service or under construction, while the United States had nine (first-class) armored and fifteen unarmored ships either in commission or building. The republic’s need to base her small fleet along two major oceans accounts partly for her greater naval expenditures ($21.4 million for 9,921 men) than those of the Reich ($8.5 million for 16,116 men). Conversely, Germany’s continental location among three major land powers (Russia, Austria-Hungary and France) forced her to maintain a much larger army (491,759 men at a cost of $88.1 million per annum) than the United States (27,759 men at $44.4 million). The re­ public’s vast surface area here accounts in all likelihood once more for the relatively higher costs of maintaining even this minuscule land force. Germany and the United States were both newcomers upon the colo­ nial scene in the 1880s. Whereas the republic had throughout much of the nineteenth century concentrated her energies on westward expansion into former Spanish and English holdings, the Reich under Chancellor Otto von Bismarck had in the mid-1880s laid the basis for a colonial empire overseas. Bismarck, exploiting the Anglo-French colonial rivalry in Egypt and the Sudan, managed to acquire four African colonies (Togoland, the Cameroons, German South-West Africa, and German

[7]

Introduction: The Newcomers East Africa) as well as far-flung island possessions in the South Seas (New Guinea, the Bismarck Archipelago, the N orth Solomon and the Marshall islands). The total area of this empire amounted to only 1.17 million square miles, of which the African lands accounted for 85 per­ cent, or one-quarter of the African holdings of Britain and France. Much of the German territory consisted of barren, almost desert stretches that no European powers had wanted. But it was to be Germany’s dream for the next half-century to create a so-called Central African colonial em­ pire by connecting the triangle of German East Africa, German SouthW est Africa and the Cameroons-Togoland with the territories of “dying” empires: Portuguese Angola to the west, Portuguese East Africa (Mozambique) to the east, and the Belgian Congo in Central Africa. If these new additions — according to German plans — could be further complemented by territorial concessions wrung from Britain in Rhodesia, British East Africa or even British South Africa, as well as strips of the French Congo, then the Reich would realize her dream of a Central African colonial empire stretching from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean, connected by a system of railroads, and serving as the vital land link for a projected worldwide German telegraph cable. But these plans remained on the drawing board. Bismarck in the late 1880s dropped the colonial issue once it had served its purpose and coldly rejected further African conquests with the claim that his “map of Africa” lay in Europe; that is, with the need to maintain a favorable diplomatic balance among Russia, Austria-Hungary, France, and Italy. And the period after 1890 was to bring but small gains. Kaiser W il­ helm II by 1900 had added the Caroline, Marshall and Mariana islands as well as Upolu and Savaii in the Samoan group and Kiaochow in China to the Reich’s overseas empire, a paltry increase of 2,000 square miles (a net gain of 0.18 percent). Kiaochow was administered directly by the navy and was designed to become a model colony. German set­ tlers were encouraged to come here, business concerns were given special tax incentives to relocate in Kiaochow, German steamship companies received government subsidies for the China trade, and separate schools for Germans and natives were set up to reveal to the latter the benefits that accrued from colonial rule. Kiaochow rapidly became known as the “Brighton of the Far East,” and in fact became the model that German planners hoped at a later date to establish elsewhere, particularly in South America (southern Brazil). But the colonial venture proved to be costly, and instead of “milking” the territories of raw materials, Berlin by 1900 annually poured about $6.5 million in direct — and an equal or greater amount in indirect — subsidies into her overseas territories. None of the latter became the object of German emigration; only one of every one thousand Germans leaving the homeland by 1900 went to the colonies.

m

Introduction: The Newcomers The United States, on the other hand, in 1889 did not possess an overseas empire in the traditional sense. However, she arrived on the colonial scene with a vengeance between 1898 and 1904, annexing Hawaii (1898), Guam (1899), Puerto Rico (1899), Tutuila and Pago Pago in Samoa (1900), and the Panama Canal Zone (1904). If one adds to this Cuba in 1901 (by virtue of the Platt Amendment) and the Philippines by 1902, the total American territory either acquired or controlled in these six years amounted to no less than 127,385 square miles. And when compared with the Kaiser’s scant gains during the same period (about 15 percent of the republic’s additions), it is not difficult to gauge the degree of jealousy, rivalry, and disappointment that permeated the deliberations of German planners through the 1890s and beyond. In fact, German-American relations in the Far East and South America between 1889 and 1905 must be seen in this light in order to appreciate their intensity and importance.

I

The W eltpolitik o f W ilhelm II and the United States ( 1889—1906)

ONE

Competition in the Pacific (1889—1899) After twenty years, when it [the fleet] is ready, I will adopt a different tone. tO BUIOW 29 O ctober 1899

— WILHELM II

GERMAN-AMERICAN RELATIONS HAD BEEN RELATIVELY AMICABLE AND SUR-

prisingly devoid of strife before the 1890s. The American Revolutionary W ar had found German public opinion, such as could be registered, not on the side of the Hessian mercenaries and their British employers. In 1781 Prussia’s Frederick the Great was the first ruler of a major European power to recognize the new republic. But the “age of navalism,” as William L. Langer labeled the era commencing with the 1890s, brought Germany and the United States into conflict over colonial ter­ ritories, trading rights, harbor facilities, and the like, primarily in Samoa, the Philippines, and South America. It is hoped that by our examining these three areas, light may be shed upon German-American relations, and some old myths and shibboleths concerning imperialism — and espe­ cially the economic “motive” usually associated with it — revised. Any­ one desiring a more embracing treatment of this subject need only con­ sult Alfred Vagts’s magnum opus.1 The subjects chosen for special analysis will be treated only with regard to their importance, and often their alleged importance, in the broad spectrum of German-American relations. In dealing with Ger­ many’s attitude toward Samoa, the Philippines, and South America, the important matter is not always so much what occurred, or what Berlin’s official policy was, as what others thought Berlin was up to and, con­ versely, what Berlin thought others, especially the Americans, were up to. For with the emergence of a mighty daily newspaper business in the western nations, the vox populi often tended to drown out the voice of

[ 13 1

The Weltpolitik of Wilhelm II and the United States the government, or at least to shape it. Thus in the period we are con­ cerned with, people in Germany who had not the slightest inkling, for example, of what or where Samoa was suddenly found themselves de­ fending its virtues as a German colony — usually at the local beer hall. It was a new factor in international relations and one that only Germany’s Iron Chancellor, Prince Otto von Bismarck, was able to ignore. As we shall see, the men who succeeded him were deeply infected with what Thomas Carlyle called “ballot box influenza,” aided, abetted, and sometimes directed by the public press.

Samoa I (1889) German and American business interests first clashed seriously in the 1880s over the Samoan Islands, “that miserable archipelago,” as Sir Thomas Sanderson, permanent undersecretary of the British Foreign Office, put it. Germany (1877 and 1879), the United States (1878), and Great Britain (1880) had all concluded special treaties with Samoan rulers; each nation desired at least coaling stations on one or more of the islands. The Australians, too, were anxious to adopt an independent stance in this region, which they regarded not without reason as being in their backyard. The situation was further compounded by a civil war over the kingship of the islands between the Malietoa and Tupua families, a “Samoan W ar of the Roses” as the Foreign Office in Berlin termed it.2 The United States backed the Malietoas in this struggle, while Germany supported the Tupuas. N ot surprisingly, the conflict soon progressed to the point where neither country could justify its involvement on the basis of possible gains to be realized.* This was even more tragically brought out on 15 March 1889 when a hurricane demolished numerous warships that had been dispatched to this tropical trouble spot. Of the German vessels Adler, Olga, and Eber, and of the American ships Tren­ ton, Nipsic, and Vandalia, only the Olga and the Nipsic escaped destruc­ tion; the storm drove them onto the beaches and not the coral reefs. A high price indeed for what Henry Adams called “wretched little lavaheaps.” Unfortunately, the obvious lesson was lost. The public press in the United States joined House and Senate leaders in demanding a firm American stand on the Samoan issue. * While Germany had cornered almost 70 percent of the trade in the South Seas, in the case of Samoa this amounted to a mere $600,000 in the year 1885. America’s trade with Samoa was a paltry $120,000 that year. Alfred Vagts Deutschland und die Vereinigten Staaten in der W eltpolitik (N ew York 1935), I, 637.

[ 14 ]

Competition in the Pacific ( 1889-1899) As early as 31 December 1888 the N ew York World had demanded that an American protectorate be proclaimed over the Samoan Islands. The Chicago Tribune supported this position on 8 April 1889, while the N ew York Herald (24 January 1889) trumpeted shrilly against o u t ­ rages b y g e r m a n a u t h o r it ie s u n r e d r e sse d , and informed its readers HOW AMERICAN RIGHTS WERE NEEDLESSLY SURRENDERED BY THE STATE DE­

Finally, the San Francisco Examiner on 8 March 1889 re­ ported on proposed British naval expenditures, lamenting that “if only we had them we could reduce Bismarck’s armada to a pile of iron filings.”3 Both House and Senate were outraged by alleged German affronts in Samoa. In January 1889 the Republican Congress offered President Grover Cleveland (whose term would end on 4 March) a war chest of $500,000 and an additional $100,000 to construct an American port facility at Pago Pago harbor — the “Gibraltar of the Pacific.” Moreover, America’s naval budget immediately ballooned by over five million dol­ lars annually. Congressman William McAdoo (of New Jersey) solemnly pronounced the Samoan question to be “germane to the naval question”; only “sufficient naval power” could protect the United States against foreign insults. “If the United States were a naval power . . . Bismarck would never have allowed the landing of a single German soldier on the Samoan Islands.” Discussions in the Senate were equally passionate. Senator Joseph N. Dolph of Oregon proposed that the Monroe Doctrine be extended to include Hawaii and Samoa. Senator William P. Frye of Maine depicted German involvement in Samoa as “one of the greatest insults against the United States that she was ever subjected to.” His col­ league from Maine, Senator Eugene C. Hale, was convinced that the German government was behind the Samoan troubles. However, the most inflammatory rhetoric came from Senator John H. Reagan of Texas. While making it painstakingly clear that he in no way was supporting northern “Nigger friends” in their efforts on behalf of the Samoans, Reagan nevertheless asserted that he would not tolerate any insult to American interests abroad. “Sir, there is something worse than the calam­ ities of war; and that is the sacrifice of honor of a great nation, the sacrifices of the rights of citizens, the humiliation of its officers in the face of an arrogant power.” It was hardly a unique stand.4 Cleveland’s suc­ cessor Benjamin Harrison apparently seconded Reagan’s oratory. On 18 March 1889 he sent three special envoys to investigate conditions in Samoa with instructions that PARTMENT.

. . . in any questions involving present or future relations in the Pacific, this government cannot accept even temporary subordination and must regard it

[ U]

The Weltpolitik of Wilhelm II and the United States as inconsistent with that international consideration and dignity to which the United States, by continental position and expanding interests must always be entitled.5

America was coming of age in the best European tradition. The German government in Berlin, still firmly in the hands of Bismarck, refused to let the Samoan question be exploited for the sake of increased naval expenditures. On the one hand, Bismarck would not ac­ cept insults or pressure from America, while on the other hand he de­ clined to succumb to colonial or naval pressure groups at home. The entire Samoan question smacked to him too much of the “new world” of trade, commerce and industry in which he felt ill at ease. W hen Ambas­ sador Count Paul von Hatzfeld cabled from London that the United States might join with France and thereby pose a direct threat in Europe, Bismarck casually replied that such a move could be checked effectively by a German-British rapprochement.6 The Junker chancellor was ir­ ritated, but not moved to precipitate action, by a haughty, almost threat­ ening letter on the Samoan tangle from former Senator Carl Schurz on 3 February 1889. In the letter, sent through the German embassy in Washington (Count Emmerich von und zu Arco-Valley), Schurz cau­ tioned Bismarck not to risk war with the United States over Samoa. He specifically warned that not even the destruction by Germany of New York, Philadelphia, and Boston would force the United States to the peace table. Instead, American cruisers would sweep Germany’s mer­ chant marine from the seas and the resulting “war of attrition” would end in disaster for Germany in about two years, that is, when America completed construction of a mammoth battle fleet. France, Schurz claimed, would come to the aid of the United States. Bismarck was con­ tent to reject this impassioned note with a few realistic observations. He informed Schurz that a Franco-American alliance could result only in an Anglo-German counterpart and that America’s war resources were hardly unlimited; he flatly denied that the United States could construct a battle fleet in two years. In an accompanying letter to Count Arco, Bismarck adopted a statesman-like tone. He dismissed the possibility of a German-American war caused by slighted “military sense of honor” as ‘ irresponsible.” In addition, he would not hear of naval saber rattling between the two newcomers on the colonial scene. “The commanders of our navy have strict orders to avoid every [possible] conflict with American warships.”7 Baron Friedrich von Holstein, the secretive, ambitious “gray emi­ nence of the Foreign Office, was also brought to heel by Bismarck, who reprimanded his aide in September 1888 for telling the American chargé [ i6 ]

Competition in the Pacific (1889-1899) in Berlin that Germany did not care which “Nigger Chief” ruled in Samoa.8 Holstein, in turn, dutifully informed General Count Alfred Waldersee, chief of the Prussian General Staff, the following year: “A war with America — now — would be horrible.”8 And the old chancel­ lor put Germany’s official position on the Samoan question in a nutshell in January 1889 when he confided to the British ambassador, Sir Edward Malet, that Samoa was “not worth the evils which might result from a collision of the armed forces of Germany and the United States.” This consideration as well as the chancellor’s belief that “we have no political interests in Samoa” was largely responsible for the Berlin Samoan Con­ ference, the first international meeting conducted in the English language, which by its Final Act on 14 June 1889 established a tripartite administration over Samoa.10 But Bismarck’s studied calm and serenity belied the general feeling in Germany. Nationalism, chauvinism, navalism, colonialism, and the like dictated against a peaceful relationship between Germany, Great Britain and the United States. Count Waldersee publicly urged the coun­ try to use the American “danger” as a pretext to increase Germany’s readiness for war.11 And German naval leaders quickly seized the oppor­ tunity to make themselves heard. So ominous did they consider the events in Samoa that on 23 February 1889 the acting chief of the Admiralty, Vice Admiral Baron Max von der Goltz, requested a memo­ randum on how a war with the United States could best be waged. Rear Admiral Guido Karcher, chief of staff of the Admiralty, on 13 March replied that Germany could only conduct such a war by “annihilating the enemy’s war fleet [and] destroying his merchant fleet.” Moreover, Karcher argued that peace could be forced only by “damaging the enemy’s land and exerting pressure on the public . . . through [naval! bombardment” of his principal coastal cities. The admiral recognized that the German fleet was still too small effectively to carry out an invasion of the United States, and therefore concluded that the German navy would have to limit itself to cruiser raids against American shipping de­ signed to interrupt maritime trade on the eastern seaboard. He was adamant on this point. “The war will be conducted primarily as a cruiser war.”12 The British naturally were wçll aware of the militant anti-American feeling prevalent in some German ruling circles as a result of the Samoan tangle. Prime Minister Lord Salisbury was informed by the Foreign Office on 15 June 1889: There has not been a time since 1870-1 in which the soldiers and sailors who surround and flatter the military pride of H.I.M. [Wilhelm II] have had more [1 7 ]

The Weltpolitik of Wilhelm II and the United States influence than now. T h e Emperor has m ore than once, in presence o f persons w hom I know, expressed his impatience at the studied peaceful attitude o f the Chancellor [Bism arck].13

However, the British Foreign Office was hardly ruffled by the Samoan issue, enveloping its official stance in customary condescension. “It is for Germany and the U.S. to agree and for us to bless them.”14 For Bismarck the Samoan conference marked his final days in office. They were bitter ones. The German press, from the conservative Kreuzzeitung to the liberal Vossische Zeitung, denounced the final treaty as the “work of the departing Bismarck dynasty.” The Berliner Tageblatt went so far as to compare the document with Prussia’s diplomatic humiliation by Austria in the question of German leadership at Olmiitz in 1850.15 It was all too much for the country squire Bismarck. W hat did the palm trees of Samoa mean to him in his beloved Saxon forest? He was unable to generate any enthusiasm for the bustling activity in Ham­ burg’s harbor whenever he made the short trip there from his nearby retreat in Friedrichsruh. And of course it was the merchants of Hamburg who were most active in the Samoan trade. As a final gesture of contempt, Bismarck supported his erstwhile enemy, the Progressive Party, to block proposed government subsidies for the Samoan Steamship Line. On 20 March 1890 Kaiser Wilhelm II dropped his famous “pilot.” A new era dawned for Germany. Her future was now proclaimed to “lie with the seas.” She would seek her rightful “place in the sun.” She would become a truly world power ( W eltmacht). And with regard to GermanAmerican relations, Bismarck’s cautioning hand was gone. The road was now open for a more energetic policy of confrontation.

The American “Danger’ Years later, in retirement in Doom, Holland, Wilhelm II claimed that as early as 1897 Great Britain and the United States had concluded a secret “gentlemen’s agreement” designed to keep Germany strictly a European continental power and away from the major trade markets of the world.16 In fact, the Kaiser was convinced by the turn of the century that especially in the field of economic competition the United States posed the greatest threat to Germany. Alfred Vagts concluded after a meticulous investigation of this topic that there never existed serious German-Arnerican economic rivalry for third markets — indeed, on the

[ 18}

Competition in the Pacific ( 1889-1899) contrary, that there was a great deal of mutual cooperation especially on these third markets — and that much of the hullabaloo stemmed from imaginary fears and emotional illusions. Vagts noted that the German stock market was hypersensitive “to the appearance of even a phantom.”17 It is, of course, beyond the scope of this study to analyze the alleged American “danger” to Germany in the field of economic competition. Suffice it to say that whatever the validity of the charges of economic warfare that were hurled across the Atlantic, the issue aroused animosities and heated sentiments on both sides. Of special interest for our purpose is Vagts’s observation that the basically feudal mentality of German diplo­ mats, steeped in antiquated mercantilist philosophy, equated any eco­ nomic or financial depression at home with a corresponding loss of power on the international scene. Thus, by the turn of the century the booming American economy had to entail a commensurate increase in that na­ tion’s diplomatic and military status. Conversely, since the German economy was experiencing a temporary period of recession, her value on the international scene was falling and she would have to adopt drastic measures to halt the downward trend. In other words, importance was attached to economic issues not for their own merits in terms of profits and balance of trade but because they were considered indicators of a nation’s power and international status. This realization helps put into perspective the Kaiser’s veritable obsession with the “danger” that the American economy posed to Europe. The specter of American economic domination caused Wilhelm to turn repeatedly to his fellow European rulers for support. Specifically, he sought to create a pan-European economic bloc under German leader­ ship directed against the United States — with or without Great Brit­ ain— modeled upon Napoleon Bonaparte’s Continental System (against England) of 1806. The German emperor gave what was perhaps the clearest expression of his obsession with the American “danger” during a meeting with his cousin Czar Nicholas II of Russia in September 1896 in Görlitz, Silesia. On 7 September, two days before the monarchs met, Germany’s foreign secretary, Baron Adolf Marschall von Bieberstein, exchanged notes on the subject with a special envoy of the Russian Foreign Office (Chichkine) during a preparatory meeting in Breslau. Marschall announced that both Chile and Uruguay had canceled their trade agreements with Europe. As President, William McKinley would further cajole them into signing reciprocity trade treaties providing American business in­ terests with a virtual trade monopoly in these countries. “Europe at this time looks on helplessly because it is divided.” Marschall suggested that the Continent should unite “to fend off the common danger.” A first [19}

The Weltpolitik of Wilhelm 11 and the United States step along this line would be higher tariffs against American grains, a measure designed to appeal to the Russians. Some might denounce such a European union as “phantasy,” but Marschall preferred to view it as “futuristic politics” that eventually would be forced upon Europe by dire necessity later, if not by voluntary agreement now. The Russians, according to the German reports, agreed “with every word.” W hen the two emperors met on 9 September, the road was clear for quick agree­ ment: “Union of Europe in a common protective tariff league for the struggle against McKinley and America — be it with or without England.” Nicholas II agreed to present the case to his French ally and to call on France to bury past grievances (Alsace-Lorraine was still in German hands) in order to “defend the European continent hand-inhand with the German Emperor.” Wilhelm was ecstatic. “The French will look pretty silly.”18 Chancellor Prince Chlodwig von Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst was not overly fond of the notion of a “tariff league,” preferring instead “a sort of Continental Blockade.” But the German ambassador in Vienna, Count Philipp zu Eulenburg, reported on 14 September 1896 that Count Agenor Goluchowski, Austria-Hungary’s foreign minister, “enthusiasti­ cally endorsed the idea of a European union directed against America.”19 Still better tidings came from Nicholas II, who informed his royal cousin on 20 October that he had discussed the matter with the French and that the idea had found favor especially with Minister President Jules Méline. Russia, Germany, and France agreed to exchange notes on the issue.20 Three days later the German ambassador in Paris, Count Herbert Mün­ ster, wired that leading circles in the French capital were generally agreed that American money was already having an adverse effect on Europe.21 The matter lay dormant until the following spring. In February 1897 Marschall discovered that Count Michael Muraviev, Russia’s new foreign minister, agreed with him that Europe was being threatened primarily by “growing British and American cooperation.” While the Russian did not see the necessity for immediate countermeasures, he nonetheless agreed that “the increasingly brutal actions of the United States would one day force Europe to unite.” But without Great Britain.22 By this time Wilhelm II had worked himself into a veritable fit. The cancellation of the trade agreements with South America he equated to “the beginning of a war to the death” between Germany and the United States. Specifically, he predicted that the German people would now finally realize their folly in having accepted over the past decade the socialists’ parliamentary opposition to naval increases. A strong fleet now, the Kaiser counseled, would have prevented the South American action. Wilhelm admonished the Foreign Office, and especially its new [ 20 ]

Competition in the Pacific (1889-1899) head, Bernhard von Bülow,* to spare no effort on behalf of a vigorous naval construction program.23 On 11 August 1897 Wilhelm and Nicholas again took up the issue of a European tariff league against the United States, this time in St. Peters­ burg. The czar demanded a “confidential memorandum” on how best to counter the American economic “threat,” “with, possibly without, and even against, England.” Count Muraviev again stressed that it was absolutely imperative that Europe prevent “a trade agreement between England and the United States.”24 These words already contained the germs of what German leaders throughout the twentieth century would refer to as the “Anglo-Saxon capitalist conspiracy.” A practical example of how the proposed continental league might function against the United States cropped up in the Cuban crisis of September 1897.+ Wilhelm at once argued that Cuba was a “European state” by virtue of having belonged to Spain “for centuries.” Thus, the United States seemed determined to rob Europe of part of its territory “by fair means or by foul — seemingly the latter.” “Yankee money” and “Yankee audacity secretly supported by John Bull” threatened Spain. Cuba was about to be absorbed by what Wilhelm termed the “AngloAmerican Limited Company for International Theft and W ar Incite­ ment.” He called upon continental Europe to rally to Spain’s defense, to keep Cuba out of the clutches of Great Britain and the United States, and especially for European monarchs not to succumb to “the snobbism of republican money.” Moreover, and most importantly, a common front now “would enhance and solidify the Continental Union that the Tsar and I have planned against America.” Fortunately Foreign Secretary von Biilow, normally a vain and arrogant operator, finally managed to persuade Wilhelm to leave the initiative to other European states, pref­ erably Catholic Austria and France.25 It is fair to state that the Kaiser’s proposed treatment of the Cuban question smacked less of the envisaged continental tariff league and more of the Congress of Vienna’s Holy Al­ liance, that “international fire brigade” as Heinrich von Treitschke so aptly described it. * Billow’s star rose meteorically: he was foreign secretary 1897-1900 and chancellor 1900-1909; in June 1899 he was made a count and in June 1905 a prince, t A civil war in Cuba over constitutional liberties had since 1895 reduced the popula­ tion by 400,000 and destroyed much of its wealth. Spain, on the other hand, de­ ployed over 200,000 troops to crush the rebellion and used the severest measures: civilian detention camps, barbed wire enclosures, and lines of blockhouses across the narrowest part of the island. W hile the struggle brought Spain almost to economic collapse, it more importantly outraged American public opinion. President McKinley, though opposing recognition of the insurgents, in the fall of 1897 raised the pos­ sibility of American intervention.

[ 21]

The Weltpolitik of Wilhelm 11 and the United States The Kaiser’s position was vociferously supported by the German ambassador in Washington, the crotchety Theodor von Holleben. In lengthy annual reports on German-American relations he constantly drew attention to the current economic competition for world markets, view­ ing this contest primarily in terms of international power politics. A sample report will suffice to convey Holleben’s attitude. On New Year’s Day 1898 he submitted a résumé that can be regarded as fairly typical. The ambassador was certain that economic rivalry with Germany was the dominant issue in the United States, regardless of whether the Demo­ crats or the Republicans were in office. “Thus the future is not a happy one for Germany.” Holleben discerned that of late the economic com­ petition had reached an almost unbearable stage. He concluded from an examination of newspapers and public opinion that Germany was re­ garded by most Americans as “the most hated land.” In fact, it was the press that had transformed economic factors into political terms. “They believe us capable of anything, especially the worst.” Since this sentiment rested upon Germany’s ability to compete successfully with the United States in the markets of the world, there could be no easing of tensions. The Kaiser noted “Correct” on the document. Holleben earnestly ad­ vised Berlin not to rely upon German-Americans to improve this image; they were rapidly becoming Americanized and their sympathy for their native land was limited to singing the German national anthem. Above all, the envoy counseled that America understood only strength. Ger­ many must never back down in the face of “American braggadocio.” Wilhelm again agreed and not surprisingly concluded that the United States would only respect Germany when the latter possessed a mighty battle fleet.26 Holleben was at other times even more specific — as well as more pessimistic — in his prognosis of German-American relations. In 1900 he reported that members of the American armed forces were convinced that the two nations would eventually go to war. He informed Berlin that Germany could not avoid a confrontation with the United States if it wanted to be a world power; his special concern was that the United States had become the world’s leading producer of gold and that her balance of trade amounted to a huge $649,000,000 profit. The ambassador chastised those at home who still did not believe that a German-American economic struggle was inevitable. The only possible antidote to American industrial and financial expansion lay in an alliance with Great Britain while it is still possible to face America jointly.”27 It shall be seen later that Adolf Hitler developed similar convictions — though obviously for different reasons. These twin notions of a “pan-European” tariff league against the United States and of an Anglo-Saxon “conspiracy” against Germany died [ -2-2 ]

Competition in the Pacific (1889-1899) only slowly. In retrospect, one can say that the Spanish-American W ar in 1898 and the resulting failure of Europe to unite against “Onkel Sam” proved to be the high-water mark of this idea.28 But the old convictions never totally disappeared. In March 1900 Holleben again warned of the alleged Anglo-Saxon “alliance,” and the Kaiser noted: “Coming events cast their shadows before!”29 Prince Hugo von Radolin cabled from St. Petersburg in July 1900 that a “very high ranking Russian official” (probably the finance minister, Count Sergei W itte) had again approached him concerning a Russian-German-French league against Great Britain and the United States. Money thus saved on land troops could be poured into fleets designed to keep the Anglo-Saxon maritime powers at bay.30 In January 1901 Holleben once more called for an “economic defensive stance against the United States”— including Great Britain.31 Two months later Germany’s naval attaché in London, Lieutenant Commander Carl Coerper, warned that the Americans (J. Pierpont Morgan) were purchasing the British Leyland Line in order to gain a monopoly over passenger travel in the Atlantic. The Kaiser was not surprised. “Only a union of all Continental [steamship] lines, includ­ ing the English, can counteract this.”32 In June Holleben relayed rumors that the United States might seize the Azores; Europe must react and establish an “anti-Monroe Doctrine.”33 That same month a German of­ ficial in South America, Wilhelm Staudt, warned Chancellor Hohenlohe “that the United States are our greatest enemy.” Staudt pointed out that the United States would not be content with cornering markets in Asia and Latin America; Europe itself would fall to American industrial and financial expansion unless a “European tariff league” was formed. In al­ most contemporary terms, Staudt cautioned that Russia was Germany’s political, the United States her economic, enemy. It was the duty of her statesmen to keep these two future giants at a distance.34 The main obstacle to the tariff league, as the Foreign Office in Berlin lamented in August 1901, was the refusal of the British to participate.35 As late as 1903 Wilhelm II approached the French with yet another suggestion to renew Napoleon’s Continental System.36 The following year he continued to warn against the “approaching American economic hegemony,” and in 1906 he finally convinced Count W itte of the grow­ ing, American “danger.”37 And in 1907 the Kaiser made one final plea to Eugène Etienne, one of the leaders of the Colonial Party in France, at the Kiel naval review, pressing him with the need for a Franco-German alliance against “the great common perils, the Japanese and the Ameri­ cans.”38 Was Wilhelm really serious?* The American senator Chauncey Depew returned from a trip to Europe convinced that the United States * Certainly Japan’s crushing victories over Russia’s fleets in the Far East in 19041905 prompted Wilhelm to raise the specter of the “yellow peril.” [23]

The Weltpolitik of Wilhelm II and the United States was widely regarded as the “white terror” and that she must at all times be prepared for war with a European power. The Kaiser fully agreed. “Right and properly seen.” And the notion never quite died. Wilhelm saw himself as late as 1912 as the “leader of the policies of the United States of Europe.” He informed Walther Rathenau, head of Germany’s largest electrical firm (AEG) and destined to become eco­ nomic czar during the First W orld War, that he planned in 1912 to create “the United States of Europe against America.” Germany, AustriaHungary, France, Great Britain, and Italy would have to forget past grievances in order to face the economic and military challenge of the two new powers, the United States and Japan.39 In the final analysis, one should not overestimate this notion of economic rivalry and talk of a “pan-European” tariff league. It reflected mainly the mood of European stock markets in a period of temporary decline as against an upswing in the United States. Moreover, countless intra-European rivalries and conflicting ambitions militated against such common action against a non-European foe. Baron von Holstein realized from the start that the issue of Alsace-Lorraine stood between Germany and France, and Biilow noted that the Russians could not agree with Germany to close the Baltic Sea in the event of war with the AngloSaxon maritime powers.40 They might have added, too, that Germany was undermining the proposal by challenging the Russians in China and in the Balkans, the French in N orth Africa, and the British in the Middle East. In short, economic factors simply were not powerful enough to determine a nation’s course — even in this golden age of imperialism. Other factors dominated everywhere: prestige, national pride, military strategy, social Darwinism, survival of the fittest arguments, expansion, international power politics, and the like.41 Perhaps the most relevant meaning of the economic “danger” thesis lies in the fact that it was so readily translated into political terms. It created an atmosphere of rivalry and suspicion which turned poisonous in 1898 when the United States and Spain clashed over Cuba and the Philippines — the latter a region in which German trade did not even amount to one million dollars an­ nually, and with a capital, Manila, that housed a mere eighty-five German nationals.

Spain’s Heirs Fall Out (1898) In September 1897 Assistant Secretary of the Navy Theodore Roosevelt informed Secretary of the Navy John D. Long that Ger-

[24]

Competition in the Pacific ( 1889-1899) many and Japan were rapidly becoming the main antagonists of the United States. According to Roosevelt, the United States should strive to create what another Roosevelt was to call a “two-ocean navy”— that is, a fleet sufficient to dominate Japan in the Pacific without opening the door to a German assault in the Atlantic. The energetic young under­ secretary reminded his chief that in 1894 the then Captain Alfred Tirpitz had singled out the United States as Germany’s potential rival in his Service Memo No. IX, Germany’s naval Magna Carta.42 Captain A. S. Crowninshield, chief of the Bureau of Navigation, went a step fur­ ther. He cautioned Secretary Long that Germany’s seizure of Kiaochow in China in November 1897 was sufficient evidence of her hostility toward the United States, that this move foreshadowed future German advances into the Western Hemisphere.43 German acquisition of the Carolines and the Marianas in October 1899, and of most of the Samoan Islands in March 1900, could only strengthen such suspicions and fears. Teddy Roosevelt’s belief that Germany planned to seize territory somewhere in the Western Hemisphere became almost an obsession, “a veritable nightmare,” with him. “He was absolutely convinced that the Kaiser would one day start trouble somewhere in this hemisphere.”44 Although he obviously could not know it, there was some justification to Roosevelt’s “obsession.” For in Berlin statesmen and naval men alike anxiously awaited the death knell of the Spanish colonial empire. As early as January 1897, in his capacity as chief of the German Cruiser Squadron in East Asia, Tirpitz had wired Berlin that Spain could not hold the Philippines much longer and that Germany’s naval planners would do well to study the geography and military potential of the islands. This was the recommendation of a most ambitious naval officer, of a man who had only recently scoured the Chinese coast for a suitable German naval base and who was destined within the year to become the “father” of the Imperial German Navy. The Kaiser seconded this stance two months later. “I am determined, when the opportunity arises, to purchase or simply to take the Philippines from Spain — when her ‘liquidation’ ap­ proaches.”43 The fact of the matter is that Wilhelm II was becoming increasingly apprehensive regarding American naval and colonial aspira­ tions. W hen the United States ambassador in Berlin, Andrew D. White, congratulated Foreign Secretary von Biilow in December 1897 on the latter’s speech to the Reichstag supporting German naval expansion, adding his hope for “sympathy and cooperation” between the two na­ tions, the Kaiser curtly remarked: “Ahem! if we are strong and therefore worthy of being cooperated with!”46 And when news reached Wilhelm on 2 March 1897 that American warships were heading for Manila, he immediately informed the Spanish ruler of this development. “Those [ 2$ ]

The Weltpolitik of Wilhelm ll and the United States Yankee scoundrels want war! ” Worse yet, three days later Ambassador von Holleben wired from Washington that the United States planned to seize the Philippines as a bargaining counter to use at the peace table. Wilhelm was outraged. “The Yankees cannot do that! Because one day we will require Manila.”47 And for once “grandmama” agreed; Queen Victoria condemned the American action against Spain with equal fervor. “It is monstrous of America.”48 The Kaiser was initially inclined to accept a Spanish invitation to Germany to dispatch warships to Manila as a symbol of protest against the United States. But cooler heads prevailed and he soon realized that his pet project of an anti-American continental bloc was doomed to failure because Great Britain would never join. “Perfidious Albion,” the Kaiser complained, would strive to maintain her independent status “be­ tween the Continent and America or Asia.”49 In fact, such wishful grand strategy soon gave way to more sober analysis, primarily from the clever, entrepreneurial Tirpitz. On 16 March 1898 Foreign Secretary von Bülow asked Rear Ad­ miral Tirpitz what possible benefits Germany might derive from an American-Spanish conflagration. Tirpitz flatly announced his regret that “the Spanish-American conflict came politically too early for him”; that is, before Germany had developed sufficient naval power “to play a decisive role.” Nonetheless, Tirpitz urged that German warships be sent to the Philippines to represent her interests in that region.* The admiral assured Bülow that naval officers had made a careful study of American “chauvinism”; there was no doubt that the United States would annex Cuba. Tirpitz urged action upon Bülow. “W ith this comes the last op­ portunity for us to purchase Curaçao and St. Thomas.” Failure to take advantage of the present international constellation, to act before the Panama Canal was completed, could only mean the loss of South America as a market for Germany’s industrial production. This consideration was especially crucial because Tirpitz was convinced that Germany could not retain a major share of the North American market much longer. N or was the Caribbean the only area to be exploited. Tirpitz recom­ mended that the Reich complement its Kiaochow colony with a “settle­ ment” on the Yangtze River, preferably at Woosung or Canton. If the government provided protection, German merchants could trade with impunity up and down the Yangtze River.50 Such was the new Realpolitik of Bismarck’s successors. •Admiral von Tirpitz claimed, in his Erinnerungen (Leipzig 1920, p. 141), that he was not informed of the decision to send the warships to Manila, that the matter took him by surprise.

[26]

Competition in the Pacific (1889-1899) In the coming days Rear Admiral Tirpitz flooded the German government with advice. He informed Wilhelm II through Biilow that although the Spanish fleet was slightly superior to that of the United States, in the long run America would prevail over Spain because of her larger population and greater financial power. This, in turn, would lead to more active and direct American political and economic involvement in Europe. The American “danger” was obviously alive and kicking. On 24 April Tirpitz reminded the Kaiser that it was not enough merely to defend German fisheries and coastal trade. Instead, the admiral viewed it as his historic mission to increase Germany’s colonial holdings, particu­ larly “to create a chain of overseas maritime naval bases.” He reminded the Supreme W ar Lord of the special task that the latter had set for him: “to link the fatherland with the Greater Germany”— those Germans domiciled beyond the Reich’s territorial boundaries.51 This notion, as shall be seen later, was not unique either to Tirpitz or to the Wilhelmian period. German naval planning was also given concrete form and a sense of reality. On 10 April 1898 the Reichstag passed the First Navy Law calling for the construction of nineteen battleships, eight armored cruisers, twelve large and thirty light cruisers by 1 April 1904 at a cost of 409 million marks. The heavy ships were to be automatically replaced after twenty-five years of service. The Kaiser rather prematurely began to sign his correspondence with the czar as “Admiral of the Atlantic.” Tirpitz found himself in agreement with Admiral Eduard von Knorr, the navy’s commanding admiral. On 20 April 1898 Knorr sent the Kaiser a lengthy memorandum discussing the possibility of overseas territorial aggrandizement as a result of the Spanish-American War. The naval officer felt that the time was ripe for Germany to seize a naval base in the West Indies. The United States was tied down in the Far East and, provided that she was allowed to retain Cuba, would acquiesce in such a German move. Knorr stated that it was absolutely essential “for now and especially for the future” that the Reich obtain “a number of naval bases in all the seas.” He then reiterated a standard argument. The world was almost “wholly divided among the major powers”; there was no virgin territory to be claimed. Thus it was “essential” that Germany “seize” suitable naval Stützpunkte (bases) at any opportunity. Specifi­ cally, Knorr pressed for future bases in the West Indies, possibly one of the Dutch (Curaçao, Aruba, Buen Ayre) or Danish islands (St. Thomas, Ste. Croix, St. John). He reminded Wilhelm II that no less an authority than Captain Alfred Thayer Mahan had recently pointed out that a naval base in the West Indies would dominate the growing trade in the Gulf of Mexico as well as the Panama Canal — when constructed.52

[ *7 ]

The Weltpolitik of Wilhelm II and the United States But it proved difficult to pinpoint exactly where Germany might acquire territory. Early in May 1898 the matter was taken up during an audience with the Kaiser. The Admiralty again mentioned Curaçao and St. Thomas as suitable Stützpunkte and repeated its peacetime as well as wartime need for a chain of naval stations girdling the globe. “W e lack a secure base almost everywhere in the world.” Yet it warned against depending on opportunities provided by wars between foreign powers. Spur of the moment decisions would lead nowhère; only “systematic planning” could bring results. Thus the Admiralty decided to investigate the question in all earnest with the Foreign Office as well as with the Naval Office. It identified as possible objectives the entire Samoan group, the Carolines, part of the Philippines (Mindanao), and Fernando Po on the west coast of Africa.53 But the horizon soon darkened. Commodore George Dewey scored a quick and complete triumph over the Spanish fleet off Cavite on 1 May 1898. In Berlin, Bülow received the bleak tidings that Great Britain and the United States might divide the Philippines between them. Events would pass Germany by. Bülow hastily cabled London to inform Lord Salisbury that Germany was firmly resolved not to be left out of the Spanish “liquidation”— there “should be no doubt that the German government expects . . . not to go empty-handed at any new division of the globe.”54 Events in the Philippines came to Bülow’s rescue. A native rebellion compounded and prolonged the Spanish-American W ar and thereby delayed any decisions regarding the future of the islands. The German consul in Manila, Friedrich Krüger, now saw his chance. On 12 May he enthusiastically recommended that Berlin select a German prince to head a Philippine monarchy and reported that the natives apparently favored this development. But Kriiger’s entrepreneurial fervor in the field of diplomacy was not shared by Bülow. The latter not only rejected the notion of a German prince as king of the Philippines, but further refused to listen to similar and related projects, such as a German protectorate over the islands. While he preferred “division” of the islands among the chief interested powers, Bülow thought a neutrality agreement such as the major European powers had extended to Belgium in 1839 most readily attainable. Hasty unilateral action by Germany would only drive the Americans into the waiting arms of the British. Above all, Germany lacked sufficient naval power to back her claims. The advantage of the neutrality proposal lay in the fact that it would postpone a “final deci­ sion” over the Philippines until a later date, when Germany possessed the sea power necessary to enforce her demands. The Kaiser agreed. He proved most unreceptive to the idea that a fellow German prince might

[28]

Competition in the Pacific (1889-T899) gain a crown in the Pacific.55 He decided on 18 May 1898 to send Vice Admiral Otto von Diederichs, commander of the cruiser squadron in East Asia, from Kiaochow to Manila in order to gain firsthand knowledge of the situation.56 However, final sailing orders did not reach Diederichs until 2 June. The Kaiser’s prevailing mood was one of frustration and bitterness. He saw — or professed to see — new evidence of the alleged AngloSaxon “gentlemen’s agreement” all around him. In Hong Kong the British Eastern Telegraph Company forsook neutrality and allowed Dewey to communicate with Washington at will. American ships were permitted to use British bases and take on coal, while a second Spanish fleet, en route to Manila, encountered numerous British obstacles, espe­ cially at Suez. Captain Edward Chichester, the British commander at Manila, proved most accommodating to Dewey.57 It was too much for Wilhelm II to bear. By 20 May he could no longer contain his anger and frustration: “The naval increases [of 1898] came too late. W e are now incredibly weak at sea. In one year we will be stronger, in three signifi­ cantly stronger. I hope that we will have peace until 1901 so that we can then put forth demands and seize the initiative.”58 The American victory over the Spanish fleet in Manila and the sub­ sequent blockade of that city attracted a host of foreign spectators. Great Britain, Russia, Germany, and France sent warships to the Philippines; only Japan refrained from such action. The German presence was most keenly felt by Dewey. Between 12 and 20 June 1898 Vice Admiral von Diederichs assembled a force greater than that of the blockading Ameri­ cans: the cruisers Kaiserin Augusta, Kaiser, Prinzess Wilhelm, Irene, and Cormoran™ Ambassador von Holleben soon reported from Washington that the American press was extremely annoyed with the overpowering German contingent in Manila. This, in turn, further irritated Wilhelm. “No one has ever before bothered about this! And it is totally immaterial to me!”60 The tragic fact of the matter is that no one in Berlin grasped the danger inherent in the Dewey-Diederichs confrontation in Manila Bay. The summer vacation season had left the German capital almost totally devoid of responsible senior officials and naval authorities: Biilow was enjoying the Austrian alpine air at Semmering, Tirpitz was at St. Blasien in his beloved Black Forest, and Wilhelm was on board the royal yacht Hohenzollem on his customary annual northern cruise. Moreover, the Foreign Office was not even notified — much less asked — about Diederichs’s actions in the Far East. It was, as Wilhelm curtly put it, “a naval matter.”61 On i July 1898 Admiral von Knorr drafted a second lengthy review of the international situation in general, and German naval policy in

[29}

The Weltpolitik of Wilhehn ll and the United States particular. The Spanish-American W ar, according to this officer, had made the question concerning German naval stations in East Asia most acute. Now was the time to acquire new territory. The admiral recom­ mended as such particularly Mindanao — except for Luzon the largest island in the Philippines — along with the Sulu Archipelago and Palawan. These lands would supplement Germany’s present possessions in New Guinea and Oceania.62 That very day Biilow cabled ominously to Holleben in Washington: “His Majesty the Kaiser considers it the primary task of the German government not to leave unexplored any possible opportunity resulting from the Spanish-American conflict to acquire naval bases in East Asia.”63 The mounting inability of the United States to solve its problems with both Spain and the Philippine rebels encouraged Germany to press her claims in the Far East. The Germanophile American ambassador in Berlin, Andrew White, attempted to calm troubled waters with a Fourth of July speech in Dresden calling for continued German-American friendship and peaceful competition. But to no avail. The Prussian envoy at the Dresden court, Count Carl Dönhoff, informed Chancellor Hohenlohe that he regarded America’s recent triumph over a European power (Spain) as a first step toward American interference in European affairs. The Kaiser hardly needed this new confirmation of old suspicions. His response was: “Right! Therefore quickly a strong fleet. Then the rest will fall into place!”64 W hat fell into place instead was the single most destructive event in German-American relations prior to the First W orld W ar. In midJuly 1898 Admirals Dewey and Diederichs nearly came to blows in Manila Bay. Almost overnight newspapers around the world flashed headlines announcing a German-American war in the near future. The Manila “incident” somehow never died. After the First W orld W ar it was rekindled by Baron Hermann von Eckardstein’s memoirs. Eckardstein, an official of the German embassy in London in 1898, claimed that Count Herbert Münster had confided to him in April 1898 that the “ad­ venturous” policy in the Pacific of German naval and colonial fanatics had “brought a German-American war within a hair” of reality. Eckardstein further stated that only “pure chance” had prevented a GermanAmerican war in the wake of the Dewey-Diederichs confrontation in the Philippines and that the Samoan question in 1899 once more brought Germany to the brink of war with the United States. In fact, the baron asserted that in 1911 a high-ranking American naval officer had shown him a telegram from President McKinley to “US Admiral Caribbean” that reportedly read: “Don’t risk a single ship, war with Germany im­ minent.”^ Although Eckardstein’s account has largely been discredited, it remains necessary to take a brief glance at the events in Manila in

[5 0 ]

Competition in the Pacific {1889-1899) July 1898 which, though in retrospect they seem trivial, poisoned German-American relations. The basic problem at Manila seems to have been a clash of personal­ ities between Dewey and Diederichs, enhanced by mutual mistrust. The German admiral later acknowledged that the concentration of such a large German flotilla had been a diplomatic blunder, and Captain Chichester later suggested that the Americans had regarded German ac­ tions in the Philippines as bluff.66 Whatever the case, relatively petty incidents involving international blockade regulations, especially the droit de visite (inspection rights), soon cropped up. One German vessel failed to display her colors until an American gunboat fired a shot across her bow; another German warship failed to heave to while approaching Dewey’s squadron by night until likewise threatened; and Dewey espe­ cially disliked German ship movements at night, which forced him to train spotlights on them and thereby reveal to the Spanish his own posi­ tions. Diederichs accepted Dewey’s dominant position as commander of the blockade, but he firmly rejected any droit de visite. On 10 July the German commander sent his flag lieutenant, Paul von Hintze, to Dewey’s flagship Olympia to protest the boarding of the cruiser Irene by an of­ ficer of the American revenue cutter McCulloch. It was during this meet­ ing that Dewey lost his temper. According to German naval records, the American admiral insisted upon his right to board any vessel, military or merchant, and “to make the inquiries necessary to establish [her] identity.” At this point, following a detailed discussion of specific points in dispute, Dewey apparently grew angry: W h y , I shall stop each vessel whatever may be her colors! A nd if she does not stop, I shall fire at her! A nd that means war, do you know . Sir? A nd I tell you, if G erm any wants war, all right, w e are ready. W ith the English I have not the slightest difficulty, they always com m unicate w ith me.

Diederichs reported that Hintze excused himself as soon as Dewey ut­ tered the words “If Germany wants war.” The German admiral claimed that he paid no attention to Dewey’s outburst and simply attributed it to “American lack of manners.”67 Vice Admiral von Diederichs poured out his bitterness over the events in the Philippines in several communications to the Admiralty. The most acid of these, dated 28 August 1898, sarcastically claimed that American troops went into battle wearing their toothbrushes as hat decorations, and that it would be “a long, long time” before the American [31]

The Weltpolitik of Wilhelm II and the United States republic would constitute “a respectable” military power. “It appears, therefore, that right now neither the officers nor the men of the Ameri­ can army seem to be equal to European opponents. It will require many years of training before the mercenaries and the generals will have been transformed into useful soldiers and military commanders. For the pres­ ent, a European army deployed ruthlessly according to our traditions would be certain of victory against the hesitating, groping tactics of the Americans.”68 Diplomatic discussions in Berlin paralleled the unpleasant proceed­ ings in the Far East. The German Foreign Office initially hoped to pres­ sure Ambassador W hite into urging his government to make concessions to Germany with regard to naval bases in the Philippines. Baron Oswald von Richthofen, acting head of the Foreign Office, presented W hite with a sweeping appraisal of events on io July 1898. “The historical develop­ ment of the world in the coming century hinges to a large degree upon the regulation of German-American affairs.” According to Richthofen, the United States was at the crossroads: she must choose between Ger­ many and Great Britain. Rapprochement with the latter would result in the creation of a union of continental states against the “Anglo-Ameri­ can alliance.” On the other hand, amicable relations with Germany could be had for a slight fee: Samoa, the Carolines, the Sulu islands, and parts of the Philippines.69 Two days later White inquired just exactly what Richthofen had in mind when he used the terms “coaling stations” and “naval stations.” The aristocrat replied that he meant “naval stations with sufficient hinterland.” Specifics began to emerge. “I see the matter much like Kiaochow. The requisite hinterland for each station in the Philippines means the entire island.”70 But Baron von Holstein was less assertive. On 25 July 1898 he drafted a worried letter to Biilow. A recent emotional outburst by the Kaiser against Lord Salisbury convinced Holstein that still more naval expenditures were planned for the immediate future, and this could only mean parliamentary discussion of the Manila episode. Holstein was ap­ prehensive. The Foreign Office did not possess a clear conscience. “W e,” meaning Consul Krüger in Manila, Admiral von Diederichs, the Foreign Office in Berlin, and the Kaiser, were “courting the insurgents” in the Philippines “with the hope of thereby getting something positive”— a naval station—“out of the entire affair.” He wished that the German flotilla in Manila would “evaporate,” but realized that Wilhelm II would never entertain such a notion. He surmised that the Americans suspected, “and probably not without justification,” that the German warships in the Philippines were there “to seduce the Filipinos into believing that other Gods besides the Americans could be had.” But Holstein could see [32}

Competition in the Pacific {1889-1899) no easy solution. He shared the popular belief that the Americans recog­ nized only strength in the shape of battleships and that any German retreat in Manila would produce “far-reaching detrimental conse­ quences.”71 In short, not even Holstein’s fertile brain could produce a blueprint either for gaining German naval stations or for easing tensions with the United States. Failure to adopt one course or the other could only deepen American suspicions of German duplicity over the Philippines. The American naval attaché in Berlin, Commander Francis Barber, was clearly alarmed over the situation in that capital. He informed his government on 12 July of Germany’s ambitions in the Far East. “I ad­ vise immediately doubling Dewey’s squadron.” Only force, he argued, impressed the German emperor, who regarded the Monroe Doctrine as “gall and wormwood.”72 Such sentiments were grist for the mill for American naval enthusiasts. In Manila the United States had found a convenient causa sine qua non; naval appropriations could be obtained almost at will whenever the specter of Germany’s “threat” to the W est­ ern Hemisphere was raised. Roosevelt perhaps put it best: “As an Ameri­ can I advocate keeping our Navy at a pitch that will enable us to inter­ fere promptly if Germany ventures to touch a foot of American soil.”73 The captain of the American warship Kearsarge expressed his desire to face Germany before that country had completed her fleet program, and Secretary of W ar Elihu Root warned of the German “menace.”74 The worst sort of public display was reserved for Captain John B. Coghlan, commander of the Raleigh at Manila, upon his return to the United States in April 1899. This officer publicly revealed Dewey’s altercation with Hintze, specifically mentioning that Dewey had told the Germans that he would never back down at the sight of their flag “which one could buy in every State for half-a-dollar.” During a banquet in New York’s posh Union League Club, Coghlan climaxed his boorish behavior with a satirical rendition of the German national anthem. Although official apologies soon came from Secretary of the Navy John Long (6 April), Secretary of State John Hay (24 April), and President McKinley (26 April), the issue rankled among many Germans. The naval envoy in Washington, Lieutenant Hubert von Rebeur-Paschwitz, called CoghJan’s actions an affront to the German naval officer corps. And Wilhelm II was not about to maintain silence. “7/ y a des canailles même en Amerike [r/V] !” (That is your American riffraff! )75 The American press naturally adopted a violently anti-German stance. On 18 September 1898 the Morning Oregonian described Ger­ many as “our bitter, relentless, uncompromising enemy.” The Chicago Daily Tribune on 5 October ran the headline: m a y h a v e w a r w it h

[3 3 1

The Weltpolitik of Wilhelm U and the United States >

GERMANY. CONFLICT WITH UNITED STATES IS THOUGHT IN BERLIN OFFICIAL

On 25 November the Washington Post declared: “W e know . . . that in the German Government the United States has a sleepless and insatiable enemy.” In fact, throughout much of the fol­ lowing year American newspapers such as the N ew York Herald spe­ cialized in keeping the likelihood of a German-American war in the public eye. Most of these reports made their way to Berlin.76 McKinley’s decision to annex Hawaii, Guam, Wake Island, Cuba, and Puerto Rico, and to accept the Philippines “as a gift from the gods” in order to “up­ lift and civilize and Christianize” it, spurred the Kaiser on in his frenzied efforts on behalf of a mighty battle fleet.77 Wilhelm II was most resentful that no diplomatic pressure could be brought to bear against the republic that challenged German colonial and economic expansion. In July 1898 he grumbled that the Americans would quickly have discovered limits upon their freedom of action if Germany had possessed a powerful fleet. “Once our navy has passed through the danger period perhaps the moment will come for the final reckoning with the USA.”78 But for the time being he could only hurl invectives across the Atlantic. “The egoism of the Americans is limited only by their vanity.”79 The Kaiser pronounced the United States a land fit only for Social Democrats, and he regarded the energetic Theodore Roosevelt as Germany’s most dangerous potential foe. “The future military dictator! Europe beware?!!”80 Only battleships would help against the United States. When the Scientific American warned its readers that the United States Navy would soon be outstripped by its German counterpart, Wilhelm noted with egotistical relish: “I fervently hope so.”81 Fault for the present lack of requisite sea power naturally lay with “those dumb, asinine Reichstag delegates.”82 But the tide would change. On 29 October 1899 the Kaiser told Biilow that there would be no repeat of Germany’s present misery once the fleet was built. “After twenty years, when it is ready, I will adopt a different tone.” His present impotence vis-à-vis the United States, W il­ helm told Biilow, very much reminded him of the time when his father was interrupted by the Duke of Hesse while on the toilet at the train station in Cologne and could only reply: “Never finished!” (Pas eticore fertig!)*3 And no one could transform serious diplomatic difficulties into petty personal issues as neatly as Wilhelm II. W hen Sir Thomas Lipton asked in August 1899 if he could borrow skipper Ben Parker and the crew of the Imperial Yacht Meteor to compete against the Columbia in the America’s Cup race, the Kaiser immediately replied that he could not afford rivalry with America “even in the field of sports” because it would cause new “bad blood” between the two nations. Moreover, Wilhelm’s circles to be n e a r .

[34]

Competition in the Pacific (1889-1899) suspicious mind quickly surmised that the entire thing was only a screen “to advertise Lipton’s tea” and he would have none of that.84 Germany’s naval officers were, like their Supreme W ar Lord, deeply disappointed that she had come empty-handed out of the reapportioning of Spain’s possessions. They were resolved not to permit a repetition of this error in the future. Diederichs, it appears, became interested in the Philippines immediately after his quarrel with Dewey. By August 1898 he hoped that the islands would be declared officially neutral so that Germany could flood them with merchants, engineers, and scientists. In October he occupied himself with thoughts of the Anglo-American “trade monopoly brotherhood.” America’s “violation of Spanish posses­ sions” and Great Britain’s “rape of the Transvaal” were ominous; only a union of the European seafaring nations could effectively oppose the two western maritime giants. “W e cannot direct our eyes to future needs too soon, and these demand a good secure harbor on the southern extremity of our East Asian station.” Diederichs especially coveted the Dutch East Indies as well as the Carolines and the Marianas. Time and again he sent cables to Berlin calling for a continental union, headed by Germany, Russia and France, against the “Anglo-Saxon world.”85 The Kaiser’s brother, Admiral Prince Henry, temporarily under the illusion that Ger­ many had actually annexed the Philippines, with bluster declared it was “a new happy indication of the expansionist forces of the Reich.”86 Admiral Tirpitz, on the other hand, kept his glance riveted on the Caribbean. He reminded Foreign Secretary von Biilow of the value of a German base at St. John, and Chancellor Hohenlohe of the need for in­ creased naval appropriations. “N ot now, but in 1901.” An increase could easily be justified in parliament on the grounds of the increased “danger” posed by Great Britain and the United States. Tirpitz mused that a con­ tinental league, including Russia and France, would be most desirable, “were it not for Alsace-Lorraine.”87 The admiral also contemplated pur­ chasing the Langkawi Islands from Siam, which would allow “our further advance into East Asia.” And he talked once more about creating a sys­ tem of German naval bases girdling the globe. The admiral was merely biding his time until Germany possessed sufficient sea power “to take energetic steps against England and America.” Until then, German diplomacy would have to “dance on eggs.”88 Biilow adopted a rather cautionary stance in these matters. Initially he favored an international conference to decide the fate of the Philip­ pines, believing that Germany would obtain a coaling station in the pro­ cess. At other times he envisaged peaceful acquisition of Ponape, Yap, Kusaie, the Ladrones or Marianas, and even one of the Canary Islands. But he was resolved not to antagonize the United States at this juncture, [35}

The Weltpolitik of Wilhelm II and the United States V

even passing up an alleged opportunity to gain a foothold in the Domini­ can Republic.* In any event, Bülow cabled Friedrich Krupp in May 1898 “the keen and pressing desire” that the weapons king complete “His Majesty’s warships at the quickest pace possible.”89 Holleben in Wash­ ington stressed that the United States would respect and observe only strength. He hoped that the time would soon come “when we can adopt a different tone.”90 Words indeed designed to flatter his imperial master. But Bülow was not granted time to heal the wounds inflicted upon German-American relations at Manila.

Samoa II (1899) No sooner had the waves stirred up by the Spanish-American W ar subsided than a new storm broke over the horizon. Or rather, an old one reappeared. The uneasy truce created by the Samoan tripartite agreement ir> June 1889 was broken early in 1899. A civil war among the Samoans once again erupted over the issue of kingship, and this time Germany found herself opposed by both the United States and Great Britain. Wilhelm II was extremely sensitive in this matter, especially since the German consulate at Apia was accidentally shelled by an American warship. Foreign Secretary von Bülow, however, sought to settle the issue peacefully. As early as 14 March 1899 he instructed Admiral Prince Henry, commander of the cruiser squadron in East Asia, to avoid all in­ cidents with the United States. “An armed conflict with the great N orth American Republic . . . at this time would be extremely unwelcome.”91 A fortnight later Bülow even contemplated making overtures to the Americans regarding a possible alliance against the British, but he quickly abandoned this unlikely project so soon after Manila. In any case, he urged restraint upon the Foreign Office as well as the German press, be­ cause a German-American conflict would delight the British at a time when they were bogged down in South Africa. And Bülow realized, of course, that Germany, alas, possessed few “diplomatic levers” vis-à-vis the United States.92 Above all, the new Samoan trouble once again brought to light Germany’s need for battleships. Bülow was ready. “The events in Samoa constitute further proof that overseas policies can only be executed with * On 30 August 1898 the Dominican president. General Ulysses Heureaux, asked the German resident minister (Michahelles) for “protection” in return for a coaling station. Both Bülow and the Kaiser rejected the invitation for fear of alienating the United States.

[ 3*1

Competition in the Pacific (1889-1899) sufficient naval power.” Wilhelm agreed. “W hat I have daily preached for ten years to those oxen Reichstag deputies.”93 Both men were under great pressure at home, particularly from the Berlin chapter of the Ger­ man Colonial Society, which sarcastically cheered the United States on in its claim to Pago Pago harbor: A favorable opportunity to establish themselves at Samoa has been seized — by the Americans. N o t b y us Germans, w hose interests in these splendid islands are b y far the greatest. . . . W e look quietly on, and w hen Am erica and England share the booty, and — perhaps — magnanimously give us a crumb or tw o, w e rejoice at the success! W h y did w e not take advantage o f the situation . . . w h y this delay, w h y are fears and misapprehensions allowed to spread, w h y does no w ord com e from an authoritative source?94

An “authoritative source” finally spoke, but it hardly pleased the Colonial Society. In April Biilow instructed the German press to curb its antiAmerican outbursts. When the Deutsche Zeitung failed to heed this advice, the foreign secretary exploded: “Do we already possess a strong fleet?! And is such an instrument replaced by the naval tables in the Deutsche Zeitung? May the Deutsche Zeitung give us 50 armored ships.” The Catholic press of South Germany proved especially difficult to handle; the Augsburger Postzeitung revived still fresh memories of Uncle Sam as “the hangman of Spain.”95 On 14 April 1899 Biilow took up the Samoan question in the Reichstag. He conceded that the “great Christian peoples of Europe” would never allow war to break out over “an island group in the South Sea of whose 30,000 inhabitants barely 500 were Europeans, and with an annual trade of less than three million marks.” But there were other issues at stake: the protection of German trade, property, and life as well as the maintenance of treaty rights and obligations.96 To a trusted aide, the foreign secretary was more candid: “The entire Samoan question has absolutely no material but only ideal and patriotic interest for us.”97 Billow’s toughest battle, however, was with the secretary of the Naval Office, Rear Admiral Tirpitz.* The admiral was not only an ardent advocate of navalism according to Mahan and an enthusiastic exponent of German Weltpolitik, but also a clever manipulator of public opinion and of parliament. Moreover, he was vain, ambitious, ruthless, and immune to criticism, in short, a man tailor-made for the peculiar Prussian-German constitutional system created by Bismarck. While parliament was debating the Samoan issue, Tirpitz urged the foreign * Although the Naval Office was responsible primarily for naval funding and con­ struction, Tirpitz managed to usurp strategy matters by force of personality and dominance over the Kaiser.

[57]

The Weltpolitik of Wilhelm II and the United States secretary to exploit “the hostile stance of England and America” in order to wring additional naval appropriations from the Reichstag. The ad­ miral bluntly asserted that Great Britain and the United States were determined “to seek a war with Germany and destroy her before the fleet is built.”98 On 11 October Tirpitz formally informed Bülow that Samoa was “already today of the greatest strategic value for the German navy as an important station on the route from Kiaochow to South America.” The future would only enhance the strategic significance of the Samoan Islands “because the Panama Canal will create new sea routes for world trade and thus also new strategic military routes.” Moreover, the islands were vital for the planned “German world cable” that would be laid from South America to Samoa, from there via New Guinea to East Africa, and across the continent to the German colonies in W est Africa.99 That same day the chief of the Admiralty (Admiralität), Rear Admiral Felix Bendemann, reiterated to Bülow Tirpitz’s dictum that “the military point of view” necessitated German control of Samoa. The admiral, whose office was responsible for naval strategy and deployment of ships, wanted the island group primarily as a further link between Germany’s South Sea possessions and South America.100 In the end, this second Samoan crisis was also resolved without re­ course to arms. Admiral Tirpitz eventually abandoned his aggressive position, vacillating between the “mailed fist” and retreat, between “energetic countermeasures against England and America” and a policy of “dancing on eggs” while naval construction proceeded.101 W ar with the United States over Samoa in 1899 would be premature; the mighty battle fleet would not be ready for at least another decade. The peace settlement in the fall of 1899 gave Germany most of the Samoan Islands, although the United States kept the main island, Tutuila, with its valuable harbor at Pago Pago. Great Britain received the Tonga group, Savage Island, Lord Howe Island, most of the German Solomon Islands, and other minor concessions. Perhaps the most significant and lasting outcome of the crisis was Germany’s fervent resolve to expand her navy. In mid-October 1899 the Kaiser announced in Hamburg: “W e have bitter need of a powerful German fleet.” Bülow, defending the Samoan settlement before parlia­ ment on 11 December, enlightened the deputies with a sweeping histori­ cal survey. Every century, he philosophized, had witnessed “conflict, a giant liquidation, in order to reapportion influence, power, and posses­ sions in the world anew.” In the sixteenth century Spain and Portugal had divided the world; Holland, France, and Great Britain entered the race in the following hundred years; the eighteenth century had seen the British triumph over Holland and France; and the nineteenth century

[38]

Competition in the Pacific (1889-1899) experienced a reemerging France and the newcomer Russia. The twen­ tieth century, Biilow predicted, would find Italy, Russia, the United States, Japan, and France creating mammoth fleets in order to be pre­ pared for the new “giant liquidation.” Germany could not afford to miss this historic moment.102 The century closed with Joseph Chamberlain’s ill-fated proposal for an Anglo-American-German agreement to rule the world, an AngloSaxon-Teutonic alliance. The British colonial secretary had realized that as a result of Britain’s involvement in the Boer War, “splendid isolation” had ceased to be valid. In a number of speeches — particularly on 13 May 1898 at Birmingham and on 30 November 1899 at Leicester — he called for “a new Triple Alliance between the Teutonic race and the two great branches of the Anglo-Saxon race”; that is, between Germany, Great Britain and the United States. However, the proposal was stillborn. Biilow rejected the idea because he thought he detected behind it Chamberlain’s desire to keep Great Britain and Germany out of South America, “although very promising strips of land for the future are to be found there.”103 Holleben reported from Washington that the Ameri­ cans would reject the proposal because they did not trust Germany. “Leading Americans” and especially President McKinley found Ger­ many as distasteful as ever. “A permanent rapprochement with America is thinkable only as the result of Germany’s economic demise.”104 On 24 November 1899 Biilow informed Holstein that he desired no alliances, be they with Great Britain, the United States, or both. “The future task of the German government is to create a strong fleet . . . and then to await future developments with patience and poise.”105 In fact, at that very moment German naval officers were turning their attention to pos­ sible “future developments.”

[39]

TW O

Contingency War Planning: Berlin (1899- 1900) Whenever war occurs in any part of the world, we in Germany sit down and make a war plan. — W i l h e l m a to A . J. B a lfo u r 22 N o v e m b e r 1899

“ t h e PERIOD WHEN GERMANY LEFT THE EARTH TO ONE OF HER NEIGHBORS

and the seas to the other while reserving heaven — where pure theory is enthroned — for herself . . . is over.” Foreign Secretary von Biilow’s bold pronouncement, greeted with delight and shouts of “Bravo!,” in­ troduced Germany’s first major naval program to the Reichstag in De­ cember 1897. Biilow herewith announced Germany’s search for “a place in the sun.” The issue was clear-cut: “Either world power [status] or demise.” Admiral Tirpitz presented the requested naval appropria­ tions as “a question of life or death.” Failure to pass the legislation would lead to “economic and then political defeat” for the Reich.1 The Reichstag agreed. In April 1898, as previously mentioned, it passed the First Navy Bill, calling for seventeen battleships, eight armored cruisers, nine large and twenty-six light cruisers, to be supported by a material reserve of two battleships and seven cruisers.2 W e have already noted to what degree the Spanish-American W ar influenced the issue of naval expansion, and that already in 1897 Tirpitz envisaged and planned future naval increases. Passage of the Navy Bill was facilitated by clever naval propaganda directed by Tirpitz’s Naval Office. No stone was left unturned, no path untried, in this masterful manipulation of public opinion. German children, including the Kaiser’s sons, were clothed in sailor suits and fed a steady diet of romantic sea yarns. In 1890 Alfred Thayer Mahan’s The Influence of Sea Power Upon History was read in German naval officer circles, and by 1894 Wilhelm II was “devouring” it. Mahan was thereupon translated and, at government expense, serialized. [40]

Contingency War Planning: Berlin (1899-1900) Leading historians and economists were also called upon to provide a framework of cultural, economic, political, military, and vulgar Dar­ winistic timber for the new institution. They included Hans Delbrück, Otto Hintze, Erich Marcks, Gustav Schmoller, W erner Sombart, Max Weber, and many others. Tirpitz’s journal Nauticus frequently published gems of wisdom from Heinrich von Treitschke on behalf of the fleet program: It is highly probable that a nation w ithout colonies, regardless o f h ow strong it is, w ill not long belong to the Great European Powers. . . . W e see today h ow Europe’s Great Pow ers are creating a mass aristocracy o f the w hite race around the globe. W h oever does not play a role in this m ighty com petition w ill n ot enjoy a happy future. . . . A nd w e are here talking about our existence as a Great P ow er overseas.3

In 1900, one year after these words were quoted in Nauticus, the econo­ mist Gustav Schmoller perhaps most precisely defined what many middleclass Germans cherished: “In the coming century we must desire at all costs a German colony of some 20 to 30 million people in South America. . . . This is impossible without warships, which provide secured mari­ time communications and a presence backed by force.”4 A recent his­ torian has concluded that this naval propaganda established in Germany “a practical if not nominal Propaganda Ministry” almost thirty-five years before Joseph Goebbels.5 Few bothered at the turn of the century to examine more closely the likely repercussions that such a measure would ultimately exert on Germany’s relationship with her European neighbors as well as with her American rival. The creation of a mammoth battle fleet was officially justified by the “risk theory” (Risikogedanke) behind it: its ultimate strength would deter any naval opponent from risking an all-out naval encounter with Germany, to be left, even after a victorious outcome, at the mercy of a strong third naval power or coalition. Moreover, it was argued that the fleet would increase Germany’s appeal as an ally (Bündnisfähigkeit) to other relatively minor sea powers in search of “a place in the sun.” The late Gerhard Ritter has described this official reasoning as “a gruesome mistake” and the entire German naval policy under Wilhelm II as “gigantic misspeculation.”6 Certainly the fleet contributed heavily to the growing antagonism between Germany and Great Britain. Ludwig Dehio went so far as to depict Tirpitz’s naval policy as “a sort of cold war di­ rected against England’s world empire.”7 And finally, it cannot be over­ looked that this fleet was basically an offensive weapon. Bülow’s promise to the Kaiser that the fleet would permit him to pursue “a great overseas U /]

The Weltpolitik of Wilhelm.il and the United States policy” entailed armed collision with established colonial powers. After all, German naval officers were the first to complain that no virgin land was available for peaceful colonization. And Tirpitz’s statement that Germany must acquire a world empire or be reduced to a backward European agrarian nation suggests that talk of empire and naval stations was no idle boast.8 Peaceful competition, entailing protection of colonies and trade primarily against the natives, necessitated overseas cruisers. But Tirpitz firmly rejected such Ujeune école” notions. As Volker Berghahn has put it: “In contrast to the war of attrition envisaged by cruiser war­ fare, the war of battleships was designed with a single blow to decide control of the seas.”9 The Spanish-American W ar in 1898 provided German naval en­ thusiasts, flushed with their recent success in the Reichstag, with an ex­ ample of the importance of sea power for Weltpolitik. As early as 24 October 1897 the Münchner Allgemeine Zeitung had published a state­ ment by a member of the Catholic Center Party supporting the pending Navy Bill in the Reichstag. The anonymous writer assigned the future navy the task of abolishing the Monroe Doctrine by actively assisting Catholic Spain in the impending war against the United States. The American secretary of state, John Sherman, was informed of this point of view by his envoy in Denmark.10 And the confrontation between Dewey and Diederichs in Manila Bay fanned the flames of navalism in both countries. Admiral Dewey theorized: “It is indecent to fight Spain anyhow. Now, if France could come in too, we could save our faces, but best of all if Germany would come in. If only Germany could be per­ suaded to come in.”11 In fact, Dewey in 1898 flatly predicted that the next war of the United States would be in fifteen years with Germany. These dire prophecies were not ignored in Germany. The United States was now regarded as a most dangerous competitor in the pursuit of colonial possessions and naval coaling stations. Germany’s political and military leaders therefore turned their attention to the likelihood of an armed clash with this new rival.

Invasion Strategies I (1898-1900) “Whenever war occurs in any part of the world, we in Germany sit down and make a war plan.”12 These Imperial words were recorded by the British statesman Arthur James Balfour in November 1899; and indeed it later became known that during the winter of 1897-1898 a young lieutenant in the supreme command of the navy (Oberkommando der

[ 42]

Contingency War Planning: Berlin (1899-1900) Marine), the future official naval historian Eberhard von Mantey, had indeed turned his attention to the formulation of a contingency war plan against the United States. Theoretical naval studies — called Winter arbeiten after the season in which the subjects were handed out — were designed either to test the overall planning abilities of certain promising officers or to shed light on current naval problems. They have all too often been dismissed by historians as insignificant essais by junior staff officers anxious for recognition and promotion. On the contrary, they often formed the basis for, and reflected the direction of, official Admiralty planning. This is especially true if one keeps in mind that the senior Admiralty officers did not take an active role in at least the formative stages of planning, prefer­ ring instead to save their talents and energies for the Immediatvorträge, the Imperial audiences, in which they had to present and defend these plans before the Supreme W ar Lord, Wilhelm II.* The relevance and importance of the Winterarbeiten become evident in the case of the contingency war plan against the United States. Before 1897 the Winter arbeiten assignments usually were related to the British Royal Navy, but in 1897-1898 they reflected the mounting German-American rivalry at sea; the first five topics assigned dealt with Cuba, the Philippines, the Monroe Doctrine, Central America, and the American mainland.13 And in 1898-1899 the questions assigned were on possible landing sites in the United States (Chesapeake Bay and Long Island), the bombardment of New York City, and other related matters. In 1901-i902 Admiral von Diederichs asked for studies on the “strategic and tactical value of American naval matériel” and the “military geogra­ phy” of the United States, the West Indies, and South America. The fol­ lowing winter (1902-1903) the Admiralty requested discussion of the “military geography” of the islands and coastlines of the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico, the military status of American possessions in the W est Indies, the probable value of the future Panama Canal to the United States Navy, the navy’s caliber, the value of the Virgin Islands as a German base, and how a European power could best defeat the United States at sea. In 1903-1904 Admiral Büchsei once more asked for an evaluation of the United States Navy, of the W est Indies, and of the Virgin Islands for American naval stations. The next year only one topic * Thirty years after formulating his plan, Mantey reflected: “Moltke, Schlieffen, even Waldersee made their great Operations] Plans all alone. With us [the navy] the O-Plans were made by some intelligent, young, junior people and the chief of the Admiralty Staff gave them his blessings and presented the O-Plans to the Kaiser.” Bundesarchiv-Militärarchiv, Freiburg im Breisgau, West Germany, F 7590, Nachlass Hollweg, vol. 4, Mantey to Vice Admiral Karl Hollweg, 16 April 1929. [43]

The Weltpolitik of Wilhelm 11 and the United States \

was listed regarding the United States: the extent of maritime commerce on the eastern seaboard. It will be seen later that these assignments re­ flected the various stages of Admiralty thinking on a possible GermanAmerican war.14 Mantey’s study of 1897-1898 on the feasibility of a naval offensive against the United States laid the basis for all future considerations re­ garding this matter. In stark contrast to the 1889 study of Rear Admiral Karcher, which had restricted German naval operations to cruiser war­ fare, Mantey recommended a naval assault upon the area between Port­ land, Maine, and Norfolk, Virginia. “Here is the heart of America and here the United States can be hurt most critically and forced to the peace table most easily.” Since the United States could not be blockaded into surrender due to its unlimited natural resources, the war would have to be won “through [military] successes on the mainland of the United States itself.” In short, Mantey recommended a decisive naval battle with the United States Navy off the eastern seaboard, to be followed by a joint naval-military occupation of Norfolk, Hampton Roads, and Newport News (later this was expanded to include Gloucester, Massachusetts). The German invasion would be climaxed by a thrust up Chesapeake Bay in the direction of Baltimore and Washington. Finally, Germany had to be prepared to face the American Pacific Fleet approximately one month after the aforementioned points had been taken. Yet Mantey was generally optimistic. He noted particularly the peaked condition of the United States Navy. Congress seemed extremely niggardly with its funds, thereby forcing the navy to copy existing, and hence antiquated, European designs. American democracy further hampered development. “It is highly detrimental to the navy that every citizen is allowed a voice [in naval matters] and, should his voice be re­ jected, is free to raise the greatest possible noise in the public press.” Moreover, the armored plates for warships still had to be purchased abroad because the local industry did not yet possess “the necessary ex­ perience and sufficient production capabilities.” The American army was also pretty much a negligible quantity. The only tried troops available in case of foreign invasion were some cavalry regiments that had been kept in combat readiness fighting Indians out West! The militia was not even on a level with German reserves. “Militia service is pure fun and games.” And finally, morale in the armed forces was far below German standards. “They make life for the soldiers as easy as possible, provide them with excellent accommodations and food, [and] give them almost no duty. The result is lax discipline, pathetic drills, and numerous deser­ tions.” It is interesting to note that Mantey paid no attention to the vital problem of supplying this expeditionary force across three thousand [44]

Contingency War Flanning: Berlin (1899-1900) miles of open sea. Such mundane considerations were left for later stages of planning.15 The question naturally comes to mind of who assigned this topic, which headed the list in 1897-1898. There is no clear answer. The com­ manders of the two naval stations at Kiel and Wilhelmshaven usually asked the director of the navy’s Education Department (Inspektion des Bildungswesens der Marine), at that time Rear Admiral Iwan Oldekop, who was concurrently head of the Naval Academy, to recommend subjects for study. Only the most qualified and useful Winter arbeiten were utilized by the Admiralty for official business. Thus it is highly probable that the topic was handed out by Oldekop, who also evaluated it, passed it on to Admiral Karcher, who in turn sent it to Admiral von Knorr, the navy’s commanding admiral. Captain Friedrich Forstmeier of the West German official Military-Historical Research Center in Frei­ burg states that the operation plans were “developed personally by the Chief of the Admiralty Staff under Imperial direction.” Moreover, Forst­ meier was informed by Eberhard von Mantey’s son in 1971 that the Winterarbeit of 1897-1898 was chosen by the young lieutenant after two urgent letters from his father (a general in the German army) ad­ vised him to select a work of especially topical interest which stood a chance of reaching the Admiralty. General von Adantey was convinced that this was the case with the “attack against the United States.”16 W hat­ ever the case, Mantey’s work quickly made its way to the top of the com­ mand structure. Admiral Hans von Koester, chief of the Baltic Naval Station (Kiel) and designated inspector-general of the navy, noted: “Agreed. An ambitious study which provides a lucid, overall picture of the American coast and therefore is most interesting at this particular moment.”17 The latter part of the verdict leaves no doubt that the pos­ sibility of war with the United States was very much in the minds of some of Germany’s leading naval officers. W ere they already looking towards greater horizons than Great Britain and the North Sea? In the United States such an adventurous scheme was not thought possible. In 1898 Commodore G. W . Melville, chief of the navy’s Bureau of Engineering, estimated that an enemy risking operations in American waters would need a fleet twice the size of the United States Navy.18 This could only mean the Royal Navy; even on paper the German fleet did not qualify. And Melville could hardly be accused of being a Ger­ manophile. He belonged to the group close to Theodore Roosevelt and Henry Cabot Lodge that believed the Kaiser “capable of anything,” especially in the Western Hemisphere. In the meantime the command structure of the German navy under­ went streamlining and modernization. On 14 March 1899 the supreme [4SI

The Weltpolitik of Wilhelm II and the United States command of the navy was dissolved and the Kaiser personally assumed command (Oberbefehl der Marine). Rear Admiral Felix Bendemann was appointed first chief of the newly created Admiralty Staff (Almiralstab). That same month the ambitious Mantey submitted a second Winterarbeit, probably ordered by Admiral Oldekop or Admiral Koester, which formed the basis for much of the subsequent work on the contingency operations plan against the United States. It far outdid the 1898 work in boldness of scope and daring of exe­ cution. No less a target than New York City was selected. Mantey ex­ pected the United States to spread its troops in a thin line between New­ port and Norfolk, with either New York or Norfolk serving as the navy’s mobilization center. The American battleships would probably be drawn into battle formation near New York because it was not only America’s largest city but also her industrial center. Mantey dismissed Cape Cod, Nantucket Island, Martha’s Vineyard, Block Island, and Cape May as possible bases because of generally prevailing adverse weather conditions, deciding instead on Norfolk. The success of this bold plan would lie in the speed of its execution. Requisite supplies would have to be stored and ready in German ports, so that immediately following a declaration of war, both men and matériel could be shipped to the eastern seaboard of the United States. Because of the unexpectedness of such a strike, the invaders “could hope to find the mine barriers not yet com­ pleted, the naval sappers not yet properly trained, coastal batteries not yet fully armed, and munition supplies not yet fully stored.” The Spanish-American W ar buttressed these assertions. “One has only to be reminded of conditions in Havana and in American ports after the out­ break of last year’s war, of how long it took to make those harbors even relatively defensible.” As examples of successful naval initiative Mantey cited Lord Nelson’s seizure of Copenhagen in 1801, the Union fleet’s entry into New Orleans harbor in 1862, and Admiral Farragut’s “damn the torpedoes” entry into Mobile harbor in 1864. Last but not least, civilian panic would assist naval operations. “In New York large-scale panic will result from just the mention of a possible bombardment.”19 In this second study Mantey estimated that by 1900 the United States Navy would consist of seven battleships, fourteen cruisers, and fourteen armored cruisers. Therefore, Germany would need seventeen battleships, thirty-three cruisers, and four auxiliary cruisers for successful operations off the east coast of the United States. Three thousand tons of coal would be consumed daily. By cruising for twenty-five days at an average hourly speed of eight to nine nautical miles, it was estimated that 75,000 tons of coal, to be transported in forty to sixty freighters, would be required. The problem of supplying this force with coal, ammunition, food, medi­ cal supplies, water, and the like for an extended period in American [46]

Contingency War Planning: Berlin {1899-1900) waters was once again ignored. In fact, Mantey’s greatest worry was that the United States Navy might refuse a decisive naval encounter. Basing his information upon intelligence reports received by the Prussian General Staff from Captain Count G. Adolf von Götzen, Ger­ many’s military attaché in Washington, Mantey decided to deploy two separate naval units. A blockade fleet would be stationed at the exit of Long Island Sound (between Orient Point and Connecticut) and a main assault fleet, assigned to overpower the New York City forts, would ar­ rive in New York at the same time. Entry into the harbor would be forced on the very day of arrival. If army troops (“2 to 3 battalions in­ fantry and i battalion engineers seem fully sufficient” ) were to be taken along, they would be landed on Long Island and the main attack post­ poned until the morning following arrival in American waters. Once entry into New York’s Lower Bay was forced, Forts Tompkins and Hamilton would be engaged and, if possible, downtown New York shelled by naval artillery. If this frontal attack failed, the force would withdraw and occupy Block Island, which would afford good telegraph communication with Germany. Mantey estimated that in order to over­ whelm both the United States Navy and New York’s coastal defenses, Germany would need “3s1/} percent naval superiority.” New York’s fortifications, except for the newest installations at Sandy Hook (New Jersey), were well known because Count Götzen had regularly furnished exact descriptions of them. Above all, Mantey admonished German naval planners “to pursue the war with the greatest possible energy in order to conclude it in the shortest possible time.” Obviously, he was afraid that a war of attrition would prove detrimental to Germany by allowing the United States time to mobilize its vast war potential. This bold plan was submitted to Vice Admiral August Thomsen, chief of the First (and only) Battle Squadron. Thus the Winterarbeit progressed from “the green baize table” through the offices of the Naval Academy, the Baltic Naval Station, and the Admiralty Staff to Germany’s highest-ranking active commanding officer. Thomsen at once recognized the merits of the plan but discounted Mantey’s reliance upon the element of surprise. New York City could not simply be “overrun,” and the long trip over three thousand miles of open ocean would not escape the at­ tention of American intelligence forces. By the time the German armada reached New York it would find “barriers, forts, and fleet” in its path. Applying a “reverse risk” theory, Thomsen concluded: The proposed direct assault upon New York will not be possible in the fore­ seeable future so long as the navy of the United States of North America exists, and when it no longer exists, ours will also be so weakened that we will probably not be able to carry out the attack against [New York City’s] fortifications. [47]

The Weltpolitik of Wilhelm II and the United States Furthermore, Thomsen dismissed ' Mantey’s worries that the United States Navy might dodge an all-out sea battle. American “egoism” and “search for glory” would cause that country’s military planners “to seize every chance to do battle.”20 But Thomsen had an alternate plan. Instead of occupying Norfolk as a naval base, he suggested “Puerteriko,” the seizure of which “would pose only minor difficulties.” If the United States fleet engaged the German invasion forces here, this would be only to Germany’s advantage, because the enemy would then also be far removed from his home base. From Puerto Rico operations against the mainland of the United States could be carried out at any time with impunity. Especially Newport, Rhode Island, and Hampton Roads, Virginia, seemed suitable targets. The older German warships would secure the base at Puerto Rico while the newer vessels would land the German army regulars on the conti­ nental United States. Thomsen was not sure, however, that the capture of New York, Washington, Baltimore, and Philadelphia would convince “the country between the East and the W est” to sue for peace. The admiral admitted that he “was not familiar with the size” of the land “between the East and the West.” Yet this was not crucial. “I should like to believe, nonetheless, that much will have been accomplished when we have taken and hold the American northeast.” And finally, Thomsen acknowledged the timeliness of Mantey’s study, “because at this moment every thinking German naval officer is busy studying . . . the conse­ quences of an armed conflict between Germany and the United States of N orth America.” Two interesting observations emerge from Admiral Thomsen’s re­ marks. First, as had Admiral von Koester the previous year, Thomsen clearly recognized that a naval conflict between the United States and Germany was a distinct possibility and not merely wishful thinking by junior officers, not mere “routine considerations.” It is revealing to note that in this “age of navalism” colonial disputes in far distant Samoa and the Philippines sufficed to turn the attention of Germany’s leading naval planners to the likelihood of maritime operations against the United States. Second, Thomsen’s inability to spell Puerto Rico and his lack of information on the size and industrial-military-financial capabilities of a potential enemy argue little for the thesis, expounded by former naval officers and accepted by many historians at face value, that Germany’s naval officers were especially “cosmopolitan” and “knowledgeable of world matters.”21* * Mantey later complained that naval officers had thought too much in terms of “Continental politics” and that especially the officers of the Admiralty Staff were merely “an unfortunate imitation of the [army] General Staff . . . the staffs thought

U 8]

Contingency War Flanning: Berlin (1899-1900) This notwithstanding, the new Admiralty Staff proceeded full steam with the operational planning for a war against the United States. By utilizing Mantey’s two studies, it was possible to put on paper the first detailed “plan of advance” (Marschplan) during the same month as Mantey’s second study, March 1899. Thus the Winterarbeiten had now become official Admiralty Staff business. In its basic execution, Mantey’s plan of March 1899 remained the model for a German advance to the east coast of the United States; later versions merely streamlined Mantey’s concept. Admiralty planners in March 1899 concluded that if Germany did not want to sacrifice her overseas trade at the outset of a war with the United States, “our fleet must as quickly as possible assume the offensive against the American [east] coast with the aim of encountering and an­ nihilating the enemy fleet.” The route of attack was to be as follows: T h e cruising radius o f our ships necessitates a coaling station for the advance. A s such w e must regard the w estern A zores — T opes [o r] Flores. D uring the w orst season o f the year, i.e. winter, the advance must proceed via Flores to the northeastern A ntilles and on ly from there to the east coast of the U nited States; in the summer, i.e. the best tim e o f the year, in a straight line from Flores to the Am erican coast.

Puerto Rico was dismissed as a possible station because it was too far from the main theater of the war. Instead, Frenchman Bay, Maine, and Long Bay, South Carolina, were suggested. The enemy fleet was expected to gather at Hampton Roads or in Long Island Sound. Good supply depots could be established in the region of Cape Cod and Nantucket Island.22 The main German armada would be ready to sail from W il­ helmshaven on the seventh day of mobilization, while the supply ships would be ready two days later and would join the main fleet on the twelfth day. Then, once united, the convoy would pass from the N orth Sea through the English Channel to Flores in the Azores at a cruising speed of nine knots. The older ships of the Siegfried class (S.M.SS. Siegfried, Beowulf, Hildebrand, etc.) would initially steam ahead at twelve knots and recoal on the northern coast of France or Spain. If this proved to be impossible, they would be towed the rest of the way to Flores by the more modern warships once their coal supplies had been that they were half-gods.” He bitterly asserted that the naval officers “were a Prussian army corps transplanted into iron barracks.” Bundesarchiv-Militärarchiv, Freiburg im Breisgau, West Germany, F 7590, vol. 4, Mantey to Hollweg, 16 April 1929* [49]

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T h e 1899 Invasion Plan: German title: Outline Map, Line of March, M arch 1899. Antillen: Antilles. Azoren: Azores. D er Kanal (T he Canal): English Channel. Grosse: Greater. Ins.: Islands. Kanarische: Canary. Kapverdische: Cape Verde. Kl.: Lesser. Route 1 is for a summer invasion plan; Route 2 for the winter. T he map is from H olger H . H erw ig and David F. Trask “Naval Operations Plans Between Germ any and the United States of America 1898-1913. A Study of Strategic Planning in the Age of Imperialism,” in M ilitärgeschichtliche , 10 (1970), 5-32. Courtesy of M ilitärgeschichtliche M itteilungen.

Contingency War Flanning: Berlin (1899-1900) exhausted. This leg of the journey would take ten or eleven days. Re­ coaling in the Azores would last only one or two days. In the summer season, the march across the Atlantic to Frenchman Bay would proceed at seven knots and the ships of the Siegfried class would be towed most of the way, weather permitting.* Travel time was estimated at between eleven and twelve days. On the other hand, should the advance occur during the winter, thirteen or fourteen days would be required to traverse the distance between Flores and Puerto Rico, with a further five or six days needed to reach Long Bay, in this case at a pace of nine knots. The coaling stop at Frenchman Bay or Long Bay would last only one day. Therefore the decisive fleet engagement with the United States Navy would take place in the summer between the thirty-first and thirty-fourth day of mobilization; in the winter between the thirty-ninth and the forty-fourth day. In December 1899 the man who had carried out the seizure of Kiaochow and who had confronted Dewey in Manila Bay was appointed chief of the Admiralty Staff. He was immediately involved in the evolu­ tion of the operations plan against the United States. On 3 December 1899 Tirpitz asked Vice Admiral von Diederichs to supply the Naval Office with information on this subject: In the debates in the budget com m ission I w ill be required to provide precise inform ation concerning the advent o f war w ith England or Am erica in order convincingly to prove the necessity o f our planned new increases for the battle fleet.

Tirpitz did not want “a technical Admiralty Staff study,” but stressed that he required a memorandum “which in lay terms comprehensible for members of the budget commission persuasively proves just how ex­ traordinarily unfeasible, yes, hopeless, our situation would be in such a war.” In other words, a study designed to panic parliamentary delegates into granting immediate naval increases. Particularly, Tirpitz asked Diederichs to detail the inability of the German fleet to deal with the United States Navy “because in order to be at all effective we must ad­ vance to America’s shores.”23 Diederichs’s reply came on 20 January 1900. “An effective blockade of the American coast is not possible with the matériel of the Navy Bill of 1898.” But the admiral was not content merely to provide support for Tirpitz’s planned naval appropriations; he took the possibility of war with the United States seriously and in detailed fashion elaborated upon the issue. Admiral von Diederichs urged combined naval and military operations on the eastern seaboard of the United States. “The most ef* The Siegfried class were “coastal armored cruisers” of 3,500 tons displacement.

is n

The Weltpolitik of Wilhelm 11 and the United States fective method of forcing peace” in any future German-American con­ flict would be “the acquisition of valuable maritime cities in the New England states.” For this, however, it was first necessary to defeat the United States Navy at sea. “Our only means of defense lies in an of­ fense.” Diederichs also complied with Tirpitz’s request to provide justi­ fication for a new naval increase by demanding thirty-eight battleships as well as twelve large and thirty-two light cruisers for the German navy. “The fleet must be doubled.”24 This estimate was precisely what Tirpitz hoped to wring from the Reichstag, but the consideration of war with the United States could not be utilized as leverage by the Naval Office in light of the fact that the Admiralty Staff was already contemplating offensive operations in Amer­ ican waters with the forces provided for in the Navy Bill of 1898. More­ over, Tirpitz obviously did not wish to set a final number (thirty-eight) for the ultimate battleship strength of the fleet. It was more prudent to leave this question open and he preferred, instead, to use the British Royal Navy for comparison “because the further development of our fleet is designed to allow us to face the most powerful enemy at sea.”25 Having aided Tirpitz in his endeavors on behalf of added naval ap­ propriations, the Admiralty Staff returned to its own problems of, strategic planning. Diederichs’s first step in the formulation of the opera­ tions plan against the United States was to make absolutely certain that the cruisers stationed overseas possessed instructions in the event of a German-American war. On 1 February 1900 the cruiser squadron in East Asia received official orders, in case of a war declaration: “to engage enemy naval forces near the Philippines as fast as is humanly possible.” The strategy was designed to tie the American forces down “and thereby indirectly protect our trade.” Here, also, German naval leaders saw no choice but to assume the offensive. “Every favorable opportunity must be taken advantage of to inflict damage upon the enemy.” The cruisers deployed in East African, West American, and Australian waters were instructed to come to the aid of the East Asian naval flotilla. The Kaiser noted on the orders: “Agreed. Wilhelm I. R.”26 The main theater of operations, however, was to be the east coast of the United States. The offensive-oriented stance of the Admiralty Staff was stiffened by reports from the German naval attaché in Washington. On 26 Janu­ ary 1900 Lieutenant H ubert von Rebeur-Paschwitz submitted a lengthy memorandum to Tirpitz wherein he concluded that operations into the interior of the United States would be hopeless and that “an occupation of the nominal capital Washington would make no impression whatso­ ever since neither trade nor industry are of any significance here.” Instead, the naval attaché recommended “unsparing, merciless assaults is*]

Contingency War Planning: Berlin (1899-1900) against the northeastern trade and industrial centers,” specifically against Boston and New York. Provincetown at the tip of Cape Cod would pro­ vide an excellent Stützpunkt,27 Rebeur-Paschwitz had personally in­ spected the region around Cape Cod and his report greatly facilitated Admiralty Staff planning in Berlin. Moreover, Tirpitz granted Diederichs permission to communicate directly with the Washington naval envoy, and the latter was soon ordered to undertake a new inspection tour of the coastline between New York and Boston in search of a suitable landing site. On 26 February 1900 Diederichs was granted his first audience with the Kaiser on the subject of naval operations plans against the United States. He reviewed past planning for the monarch, informing Wilhelm that Germany did not possess a contingency war plan against the United States. The admiral then presented the main features of Mantey’s March 1899 study, recommending offensive naval operations on the east coast of the United States in the event of war “so that we will not voluntarily leave control of the seas in our enemy’s hands.”* Only an offensive stance could prevent “destruction of our trade and our fleet” by the Americans. The entire German fleet, including the ships of the dated Siegfried and Baden classes! as well as the antiquated armored frigates König Wilhelm, Friedrich Karl, Preussen, and Friedrich der Grosse, would be deployed, thus giving Germany at least numerical supremacy over the United States Navy. Such an expedition, the chief of the Admiralty Staff noted, would not avoid difficulty. “To match these ships against modern armored vessels with rapid-fire cannon in battle three thousand miles from their home bases is more than ‘risky.’ ” Still, it was calculated that enough initial as well as subsequent coal and supplies could be delivered by weekly supply convoys. There existed no shortage of supply ships. The route of attack remained: “Coaling depot on the Azores, advance in winter time to the American West Indies, in summer time directly to the New England states.” Diederichs harbored strong reservations re­ garding the feasibility of such an undertaking at the present time but ex­ pressed confidence for the future. “The comparative relative strengths [of the two fleets] in battleships will shift in our favor in 1901 and 1902 to such an extent that we can plan to conduct offensive operations by the fall of 1902.”28 In the end, Diederichs held back from drawing up a final operations plan against the United States to be submitted to the Kaiser, “because only after passage of the pending [Second] Navy Bill can we * The Admiralty Staff documents for the Imperial audience (see note 28) indicate that the first work on the operations plan against the United States was received on i December 1899, and that the plan of March 1899 had formed the basis for it. + The Baden class were “armored cruisers” of 7,411 tons displacement.

[S 3 ]

The Weltpolitik of Wilhelm ll and the United States possibly count upon sufficient means with which our navy can conduct an offensive against the United States.”29 The chief of the Admiralty Staff did not have long to wait. On 14 June 1900 the Second Navy Bill was approved, providing for a German battle fleet of thirty-eight battleships, twenty large cruisers, and thirtyeight light cruisers.30* Tirpitz had planned just such an increase — in fact doubling — almost from the moment that the First Navy Bill was passed in 1898.31 The new bill provided even more warships than Diederichs had requested in his report to Tirpitz on 20 January 1900. Such a dramatic doubling of the fleet was easily explained as having been necessitated by the worsening of the international situation since 1898 — the SpanishAmerican W ar and the Boer W ar — and was vociferously supported by the German Navy League, founded on 30 April 1898, just weeks before the Dewey-Diederichs confrontation in Manila Bay. Germany’s future, as Tirpitz was overly fond of saying, now truly lay “with the seas.” The major industrial nations of the world were committed to a new, highly intensified stage in the armaments race.VThere could be no turning back, no return to normalcy. Navies are not built overnight. A minimum of two decades is needed for construction and personnel training. Thus, if all went according to plan for Germany and she passed safely through the “risk” period, she would be ready to. assume her place among the world’s major maritime powers by about 1920. Then would come a time, as the Kaiser hinted during a speech in Cuxhaven in 1900, to inspect the globe anew for “points where we can drive in a nail.”32 Foreign Secre­ tary von Biilow was swept off his feet by the historicism of the moment. Parliament was told precisely what this bill meant to Germany in terms of decades. “The times of powerlessness and submissiveness are gone and shall never return. . . . In the coming century the German people will become either hammer or anvil.”33 Biilow could hardly have dreamed how prophetic this citation from Goethe would be. In fact, the combina­ tion of the creation of a mammoth battle fleet second only to that of Great Britain and the passing of the nineteenth century caused Germany’s leaders to pause a moment and to reflect upon her projected course in the coming century.

Thoughts for a N ew Age (1 January 1900) The counterpoint to Billow’s “hammer or anvil” speech of Decem­ ber 1899 was the Kaiser’s proclamation of 1 January 1900 in the Hall of Honor in the Berlin Armory (Zeughaus). W ith countless foreign digniCompare this with Diederichs’s recommendation of 20 January 1900 (see page 52).

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Contingency War Planning: Berlin (1899-1900) taries and correspondents in attendance, Wilhelm II adopted the familiar tone of the officers’ mess hall. The “glorious German Army,” he an­ nounced, would continue to be the rock “upon which Germany’s power and greatness rests,” especially since “providence” would probably force his sons to take up the sword once more. The nineteenth century had seen how his grandfather (Wilhelm I) had reorganized the Prussian Army and raised it to the highest pinnacles of honor and glory; the next century would witness a similar development of the German navy “so that the German Reich might be in a position to realize abroad all that has not yet been attained.” This allusion to future expansion was strengthened by Wilhelm’s closing citation of Friedrich Wilhelm I, Prussia’s “Soldier King” : “When one wants to decide anything in this world with the pen it can be done only if the power of the sword stands behind it.”34 The speech is more interesting than the many famous marginal notes that the Kaiser scribbled on documents that passed across his desk be­ cause he was well aware of its significance. He was here addressing him­ self not to isolated incidents or reports but to future developments spanning decades. His frequent references to major events in Prussian history during the preceding two centuries were purposely designed to give added weight to his remarks. It was not mere coincidence that the most frequently recurring words were Weltmacht, Weltreich, W elt­ geltung: words intended to emphasize Germany’s future role in world, as opposed to strictly European, affairs. The Kaiser’s manifesto did not fall upon deaf ears. Publicists such as Eduard von Hartmann quickly announced that Germany aspired to take her place among the other “Great Powers,” the United States, Great Britain, and Russia. Max Lenz, a pupil of Leopold von Ranke, dedicated a book to his teacher’s concept of “Great Power” status. And the radical Pan-Germans naturally welcomed the speech in their Alldeutsche Blätter: “The new century places Germany before a crucial dilemma: do we want to sink down to the level of a power of, at best, secondary rank . . . or do we want to become . . . a superior people [Edelvolk], a master people [Herrenvolk] destined to become the harbinger of culture for all of humanity?” Former court chaplain Adolf Stocker’s Evangelische Kirchenzeitung also took up the Imperial standard. Bismarck’s genius, Stöcker asserted, had raised Germany from a nation of “poets and think­ ers” to one of “doers and conquerors,” thereby providing Germany with hegemony in Europe. “Now we are about to create a powerful navy in order to protect our greatly expanded trade, to increase our still rel­ atively worthless colonial empire, and to grant us a voice in the struggle for world domination [Weltherrschaft].”35 The various New Year’s proclamations are doubly interesting be[ JJ ]

The Weltpolitik of Wilhelm II and the United States cause they often contain sentiments and attitudes not generally found in the official documents. The Frankfurter Zeitung, which can hardly be accused of radicalism, provided a good sample. In a lead editorial on 30 December 1899 it drew a parallel between 1800 and 1900 in pseudoHegelian dialectics. By 1800 the prevailing cosmopolitanism was being challenged by a new virile nationalism. In 1900 that nationalism was un­ der attack by imperialism and a synthesis, cosmopolitanism, already at hand. It seemed to be a squaring of the circle. But the cosmopolitanism of 1900 that the paper spoke of was not ethereal, not of the intellect, but very real and physical in the sense of world empires. Could Germany af­ ford to stand idly by and watch as others marched towards this goal? The paper thought not. History would soon see three or four super­ powers dominating the globe. “W e hope and wish that Germany will be one of these world empires.” The “foundation and expansion” of “world empires” was singled out by the Frankfurter Zeitung as the salient issue in the coming century. Finally, the satirical Kladderadatsch in its final issue of the nineteenth century expressed a widespread fear when it “re­ ported” the arrival of a new century in which “much of Europe will go into the private ownership of the Rockefellers and Vanderbilts.”36 Pic­ tures of German battleships adorned many a newspaper front page and magazine cover. There also existed a general feeling that the “Romance” nations were in a state of decline and that the “Germanic” countries were the natural heirs. Perhaps Joseph Chamberlain had been close to the mark with his proposed Anglo-American-German alliance — at least in theory. The rector of the Charlottenburg Technical College in Berlin, a person en­ joying imperial patronage, touched on this theme in his New Year’s declaration: “The end of the century finds the Romance peoples in de­ cline [and] the German culture in the process of conquering the world. It finds Germany as the leading political and economic power, protecting this process with a mailed fist.”37* Others, although not agreeing on exactly what “peoples” were “declining,” took up the theme. Ludwig Stein wrote that especially the Persian, Indian, and Chinese empires were ready for reapportioning, and Theodor Ziegler predicted that Great Britain’s “defeats in South Africa” foreshadowed a new “division of the world.”38 The latter notion concerning the fall of the British Empire naturally appealed to Admiral von Tirpitz. It was his firm belief that •T heodore Roosevelt informed Professor Hugo Münsterberg of Harvard in 1903: “The future totally belongs to a coopérating Germany, England and the United States; the Slavs are still one hundred years behind and the romance nations are finished.” Cited in Alfred Vagts Deutschland und die Vereinigten Staaten in der W eltpolitik (N ew York 1935), II, 1597.

w

Contingency War Planning: Berlin (1899-1900) Great Britain had seen her best days and that Germany would have to be ready when the time came to divide the spoils with Japan, Russia, and the United States.39

Invasion Strategies II (1900-190a) Germany’s leaders remained preoccupied throughout 1900 with naval appropriations as an expression of German power and purpose. Biilow assured the parliamentary budget committee in March that only battle­ ships commanded respect. The crisis in Manila might have been pre­ vented, he suggested, if Germany had been able to support Diederichs with a mighty battle fleet. Moreover, the future would surely bring a new confrontation, probably in Venezuela or Guatemala. German trade, steadily increasing in East Asia and South America, required warships for protection. Naval funds, Biilow stated, “were designed first and foremost to provide security at sea against England and America.”40 He cleverly inverted Bismarck’s arguments from 1889 against naval expenditures. Then, the chancellor had reasoned that Germany needed only a fleet suf­ ficient to protect her interests in Samoa against the minuscule United States Navy. But now the Americans were laying the foundations for “a great fleet.” Thus Germany was forced to keep pace with American naval construction if she wanted to maintain the parity recommended by the legendary Bismarck.41 A perfect vicious circle. Admiral von Tirpitz assured Reichstag critics that his battleship con­ cept did not rule out cruiser construction. In fact, he went on record with a promise of large overseas cruisers in the near future in order to protect German maritime trade in Asia and South America, “where we can accomplish little through diplomatic means but only through the might of our ships.”42 And the Reich’s naval envoy in Washington kept Berlin informed of local developments. His reports had a single purpose: to spur naval planners on in their quest for a fleet second to none. RebeurPaschwitz particularly stressed that the United States had a head start on Germany in terms of battleship construction, but he felt certain that Germany could overcome this initial lead by superior organization, con­ struction, and personnel training.43 The Kaiser, of course, remained for Americans the most reliable source regarding Germany’s alleged hostile intentions overseas. At the public launching of the battleship Wittelsbach in Wilhelmshaven in July 1900, he again rattled the saber, warning that in the future no decision could be made “upon the ocean or in faraway lands without the German

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The Weltpolitik of Wilhelm ll and the United States Emperor.” He announced that it was solely his duty and his privilege to create the necessary —“and if it must be, the most powerful”— means to enforce this bold claim. The self-styled “Admiral of the Atlantic” further warned that he would deploy his battleships “without mercy.”44 Needless to say, the speech was hardly designed to calm American ap­ prehensions concerning German designs — especially upon the Western Hemisphere. This public rhetoric was paralleled by continued staff planning for the operational plan against the United States. In the formulation of this contingency plan, Admiral von Diederichs had placed special emphasis upon close cooperation between the Admiralty Staff and the General Staff of the army. The Kaiser’s marginal instructions—“joint report Admiralty Staff - General Staff”— on Rebeur-Paschwitz’s cable to Tirpitz of 6 January 1900 served as the official basis for joint talks.45 Diederichs first approached Count Alfred von Schlieffen, chief of staff of the Prussian army, on this matter on 28 November, after passage of the Second Navy Bill, and on 1 December the general conveyed his willingness to commence work. Throughout the remainder of 1900 both planning agencies turned their attention to the plan. Naval staff work had been slowed down somewhat by Tirpitz’s request of December 1899 for information on the operations plan against the United States, to be used to justify the desired naval expansion to the Reichstag. This delay was further compounded by the necessity of converting the March 1899 strategic operational Marschplan into a detailed mobilization plan for both fleet and train. On 10 December 1900 Diederichs presented the results of these long months of Admiralty Staff planning in still another audience with W il­ helm II on the state of the American contingency plan. He again recom­ mended Boston and/or New York as the most suitable targets, with Provincetown serving as Stützpunkt. He estimated that by 1901 Ger­ many would have twenty-two battleships against eighteen for the United States, a total of 172,145 tons of floating warships as against 141,893 tons, and a German advantage of 138 to 114 pieces of heavy naval artillery. “Germany’s armored fleet is numerically superior to that of the United States.” In ships available and suitable for duty on the Atlantic Ocean, Germany also held a favorable edge: fifteen to eleven battleships, 136,088 to 113,634 in total tonnage, and ninety-seven to ninety in heavy naval cannon. Hence the offensive could only lie with Germany. “An Amer­ ican expedition into German waters, however, would be utterly un­ successful.”46 But Wilhelm II proved, desipte all his bombast, to be a more sober military planner. He did not accept the optimistic calculations of his

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Contingency War Planning: Berlin (1899-1900) naval leaders, and instead ordered that “with respect to the impossibility of transporting enough troops to the American mainland at the start of a war, we should take the island of Cuba under consideration as a pre­ liminary target in our advance against North America.” Diederichs was hardly pleased by this turn of events. On 25 February 1901 he asked Schlieffen to calculate the number of troops needed for an occupation of Cuba, but at the same time he reminded the general that Cuba was not the final goal and that the army should also figure out how many troops it required for land operations against Boston and New York. “It thus appears to me as necessary as ever to extend our preliminary studies on the basis of the Imperial audience to cover the mainland areas [of the United States], independent of the cursory work on the occupation of Cuba (and Portorico).”47 Schlieffen proceeded cautiously. He took the Kaiser’s position as Supreme W ar Lord at face value; open disregard of an Imperial decision was anathema to him. On 13 March 1901 he sent his calculations to Diederichs. The letter is a model study in vagueness. Schlieffen obviously did not want to commit himself in writing. He agreed to Cape Cod as “a base for operations against Boston as well as against New York,” but in­ sisted that the troops would have to break out of this narrow peninsula, preferably to Plymouth, as soon as possible after landing. The strength of the American regular army was estimated at 100,000 men, of which number perhaps 30,000 to 40,000 would be available for duty on the east coast at the time of a German landing. The general cautioned Diederichs not to pay too much attention to examples from the Spanish-American W ar — an obvious reference to Mantey’s second study. In 1898 it had taken the United States four weeks to assemble 125,000 men and three months later there were still only 223,000 men in uniform. But this figure was misleading, Schlieffen warned, “because a [German] landing upon American soil will stir patriotism much more than the [SpanishAmerican] war did.” And of the eleven million men eligible for military service in the United States, the general estimated that 106,000 had re­ ceived “scanty military training” and that the United States could there­ fore have some 100,000 men —“of which one-third are well trained, twothirds not properly trained”— available at the point of attack. He was even more cautious in estimating the number of German troops required for the operation, guardedly stating that this would depend on the num­ ber of troops the United States could muster immediately after the out­ break of hostilities. “One cannot give precise figures because the Amer­ icans possess no organized mobilization plans, preferring instead to base their defenses upon the creation of large volunteer armies that will first have to be organized and trained militarily once war is proclaimed.” In [ 59 \

The Weltpolitik of Wilhelm ll and the United States any case, Schlieffen estimated one army corps for securing the landing site (Cape Cod) and even greater numbers to break out of the peninsula. “Thus it becomes clear that at the outset 100,000 men will have to be transported to the Cape Cod peninsula. This number would probably also suffice for operations against Boston.” An attack upon New York City, on the other hand, would require an even greater force because of “the significantly longer lines of communication” and the mounting danger of American flank attacks as their reserve and volunteer units were mobilized. Obviously, time and quickness of movement were the keys to any possible operations on the eastern seaboard. Schlieffen did not bother to discuss the relative merits of Cuba and Puerto Rico as landing sites, “because His Majesty has decided that Cuba shall be the preliminary target for an attack upon N orth America.” He merely expressed concern that the Cubans might prove hostile to the German invaders. Conse­ quently, 50,000 soldiers would be needed to secure the island as a base of operations; 100,000 additional troops would be required for the jump to the American mainland. But the general warned that even this quantity would not be sufficient for operations into the interior of the United States.48 Diederichs was furious. To Schlieffen’s evasive reply that the req­ uisite German force would depend on enemy resistance encountered, the admiral sarcastically commented: “That is most ingenious!” At the foot of the letter Diederichs added: “Since, in the view of the General Staff, we are unable to accomplish anything on the mainland with the number of troops that we can transport there, we must advance against the islands [West Indies] or else declare our [military] bankruptcy vis-à-vis the United States.” The admiral resolutely refused to abandon his plans for a direct landing on the east coast of the United States. Three days after Schlieffen’s disappointing reply he stated anew: “W e must continue to contemplate a landing in Cape Cod Bay.”49 It should be remembered, as Captain Forstmeier has pointed out, that the navy was overly anxious to show the prestigious Prussian army what sea power could accomplish — if only the army would go along and offer its vital support. Berlin planners relied heavily upon reports submitted by Germany’s naval attaché in Washington. In February 1901 Rebeur-Paschwitz had wired Schlieffen’s office regarding the urgency of an operations plan against the United States. The communication bordered on insolence. The envoy noted that by now not even the Prussian army could afford to ignore the fact that the United States posed as much of a “danger” to Germany as any of her continental neighbors (Russia and France). He especially reminded the General Staff that it would do well to reread a manuscript entitled “W orld History in Outline,” written by a man [ 60]

Contingency War Planning: Berlin (1899-1900) “very close to the General Staff”— Yorck von Wartenburg. RebeurPaschwitz quoted at length from this work: “Despite the fact that the W est Atlantic world [America] is still totally dependent intellectually upon the East Atlantic [Europe], it desires to annihilate it economically and the final showdown will not be of a peaceful nature” (my italics).50 On 20 March 1901 Admiral von Diederichs asked Rebeur-Paschwitz to inspect all possible landing sites in the Boston-New York area once more. He deviously informed the naval attaché that Schlieffen had an­ swered his queries regarding the possibility of a German landing in the Cape Cod area in a “generally very positive manner.”51 Specifically, Diederichs asked Rebeur-Paschwitz to board the cruiser S.M.S. Vineta, which was coming up from South America for an inspection tour of Boston under the guise of a routine repair stop. The admiral obviously still cherished the direct invasion project, despite an official veto from the Kaiser and an unenthusiastic response from the General Staff.52 Rebeur-Paschwitz and Captain Baron R. von Kap-herr, a special military member of the Washington embassy, completed a survey of pos­ sible landing sites in the Boston area in March 1901. Their joint findings recommended two sites north of the city, Rockport and Gloucester, Massachusetts.53 Rebeur-Paschwitz took this opportunity once more to impress upon Schlieffen the climate of opinion in the United States, stressing: . . . that at least for the navy there exists every reason clearly to contem plate the necessity o f operations against the U nited States. I have at various times . . . pointed out h ow [A m erican] confidence and feelings o f superiority vis-à-vis Europe have drastically increased and h ow such sentiments have found expression in the press, in the speeches o f parliamentarians, and every­ w here else to a degree w hich, I believe, is hardly imaginable b y us [at hom e].

The envoy asked specifically that the gentlemen of the General Staff be constantly reminded of this fact.54 In retrospect it can be seen that Schlieffen’s letter of 13 March 1901 formed a turning point in the formulation of the operations plan against the United States — despite Diederichs’s continued efforts on behalf of the direct invasion project. It marked a return to sober military planning and a turning away from what can only be termed the reckless offensiveoriented thinking that had characterized Admiralty Staff planning ever since Mantey’s first Winterarbeit of 1898. It further constituted a return to Admiral von Tirpitz’s Stützpunktpolitik — the policy of acquiring a system of naval bases girdling the globe — which, as shall be seen later, found its most distinct expression in the work of Vice Admiral Wilhelm [ 61]

The Weltpolitik of Wilhelm II and the United States Büchsei.85 And finally, the letter lucidly demonstrates that a GermanAmerican conflict was a very real problem, that serious operational plan­ ning was under way among Germany’s highest naval as well as military leaders, and that in line with the expansionist theories of the navalism and imperialism of the period, the Germans did not shrink from contemplat­ ing and planning a war three and a half thousand miles from their shores, for stakes (Samoa, the Philippines, West Indies, and the like) that can at best be described as mediocre and which were out of all proportion to the risks involved. German-American relations underwent further deterioration in 1901 through publication of a book pointing out the feasibility of German naval and military operations against the United States. The author, Baron Franz von Edelsheim, was a first lieutenant in the elite Second Uhlan cavalry and at the time of publication attached to the General Staff. In Operations Upon the Sea: A Study, Edelsheim clearly foresaw a successful landing on the eastern seaboard of the United States. The navy’s role would be limited primarily to hit-and-run attacks against the major seaports while the army would fight the decisive battles on land. The baron espied victory for Germany in the sorry state of the American army, calculating that of its 65,000 troops only some 20,000 could be deployed against the invading German forces. About 10,000 men would have to be kept out West to guard against an Indian uprising. The American militia was dismissed as worthless. Edelsheim realized that operations into the interior of the country would be hopeless, but he be­ lieved that the seizure of large parts of the east coast as “pledges” would suffice to make the United States come to terms with Germany.56 Schlieffen was extremely upset over this untimely publication, officially denying that it had any connection whatsoever with the General Staff.57 The Foreign Office and Naval Office quickly added their denials. However, Germany’s semiofficial military journal Militärwochenblatt immediately reviewed the book. Twice. One reviewer expressed the con­ viction that Germany was now sufficiently armed at sea to risk an en­ counter with the United States Navy, while a second added that Edels­ heim had achieved his purpose “of making broad circles receptive to the idea” of a German-American war. The first reviewer closed by asking how this invading armada would be supplied for an extensive period in American waters. It was a fair question and one that defied explanation not only by Edelsheim but also by the Admiralty Staff.58 The impact of Edelsheim’s work upon German-American relations was utterly ruinous. Although they obviously could not know that the book very closely paralleled official planning, American leaders were now certain that Germany harbored hostile intentions in the Western Hem-

[6 2 ]

Contingency War Planning: Berlin (1899-1900) isphere. On 19 November 1901 Jules Cambon, the French ambassador in Washington, could report to Foreign Minister Théophile Delcassé that German-American relations: . . . are worse. . . . One is jealous, one knows that one fights on either side for the commercial supremacy of the world; there is no agreement possible in this field, and it suffices that some guard-lieutenant at Berlin occupies his leisure in organizing on paper an invasion of American territory by German troops to give new strength of actuality to Admiral Dewey’s saying that the first war of the United States would be with Germany.59 Cambon hit the nail on the head. Two weeks after General von Schlieffen’s celebrated communication to Diederichs on the most likely landing site for a German invasion of the United States, Senator Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts informed Vice-President Theodore Roo­ sevelt* that he considered a German landing in Boston — his constituency —“well within the range of possibilities.” The United States must con­ stantly be on guard. “The German Emperor has moments when he is wild enough to do anything.” However, Lodge considered a German landing in South America (Brazil), as propounded by the German econo­ mist Gustav Schmoller, a more likely prospect. Roosevelt, in turn, in­ formed Lodge that Germany was indeed the real menace to the United States, emphasizing that the Germans “count with absolute confidence upon our inability to assemble an army of thirty thousand men which would in any way be a match for a German army of the same size.”60 Moreover, American naval officers returning from the German autumn maneuvers in 1900 were “greatly impressed with the evident intention of the German military classes to take a fall out of us when the op­ portunity offers.”61 The book by Edelsheim showed Americans where the danger lay. Perhaps the only American official still oblivious to the anti-American sentiment in Germany was the naval attaché in Berlin, William H. Beehler, who continued to laud the “remarkably competent Emperor” and the merits of “one Commanding Officer endowed with supreme authority to successfully conduct combined operations.”62 Naval planners in Berlin were provided by various sources with further reports on German-American relations during 1901. Ambassador Holleben was becoming more pessimistic every day. Whereas earlier he had recommended a German-American rapprochement, in August 1901 he advised gloomily that only a temporary “modus vivendi” on the basis * Roosevelt had been governor of N ew York from 1898 to 1900; in January 1901 he became vice-president and in September of that year assumed the presidency after the assassination of William McKinley.

[63]

The Weltpolitik of Wilhelm II and the United States v

of Frederick the Great’s motto, uToujottrs en vedette’'' (Always on guard), could be attained. On the economic front, Germany and the United States were presently under an “armistice” with both sides pre­ paring for the final showdown. McKinley, the ambassador predicted, would try to avoid war. Roosevelt favored war with Germany, as did Lodge. Holleben reported that navy as well as army officers in the United States were convinced that “sooner or later there will be war between the United States and Germany.” American naval planners especially favored a war and hoped to provoke it “à la Manila.” It was a cruel dilemma and there existed only one possible solution: Germany, as Europe’s major economic power, “must accept battle with America.” Moreover, the day would soon come when Germany and the United States could no longer avoid the question of “German naval bases in South America.” The am­ bassador apparently was aware of German preparation of a contingency war plan against the United States because he cautioned Berlin not to overestimate the importance of capturing New York, Boston, or other cities along the eastern seaboard in the event of war. It was true that Puerto Rico could easily be seized and used as a German base, but there was no ready antidote against America’s vast resources. In the final anal­ ysis, Holleben argued that only rapprochement with Great Britain could protect Germany from the American “danger.”63* The first secretary of the German legation in Washington, Count Albert von Quadt, in October 1901 submitted a rather curious report of conditions in the United States to the new chancellor, Count Bernhard von Biilow. It foreshadowed many of the views concerning America’s moral decay that were later to be associated with the National Socialist regime. Quadt reported that New York and Philadelphia were veritable moral sewers. The pool halls stood under police protection, the thousand houses of ill repute received police support in “recruiting”— especially underage girls—and organized crime worked in unison with the law. Bribery ran rampant and reigned supreme: in government contract awards, customs inspections, legal decisions, and congressional votes. No less than one-third of Philadelphia’s thirty-million-dollar budget ended up in the pockets of the mayor and his city council each year. Most important, this corruption would soon affect the officer corps. In a country where soldiering was “a business like any other” rather than a matter of “class privilege,” the armed forces would inevitably be under­ mined and rendered less effective by such civilian corruption. The Kaiser * A similar prognosis was received by the Naval Office from Professor Ernst von Halle of Marburg University on 1 August 1901. Halle often acted as economic adviser to Tirpitz on naval appropriations. Foreign Office Archives, Bonn, W est Germany, Vereinigte Staaten von Amerika N o. 1, vol. 12.

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Contingency War Planning: Berlin (1899-1900) was so impressed by the report that he circulated it to the Prussian minister of the interior, the minister of finance, and the police president of Berlin.64 And when Quadt sent a Washington Post article of 20 Octo­ ber 1901 in which Senator Joseph B. Foraker of Ohio stressed America’s dire need for markets in the Orient, Wilhelm ostentatiously predicted: “There is where we will probably collide.”65 In the meantime, in Berlin both Admiralty Staff and General Staff continued their efforts toward discovering a mutually acceptable landing site. Schlieffen informed Diederichs of the drawbacks of Provincetown and Rockport, pointing out that intelligence sources available to him — in the form of an article by Captain Charles Train — suggested that the United States was expecting a German landing in the Boston area.66 Holleben cabled Biilow that Admiral Dewey had long ago concluded that a German attack would be directed against the islands of St. Thomas and St. John in the West Indies.67 These two reports, though conflicting in their estimates of possible landing sites, clearly showed that the United States was alive to the problem of a German invasion and that its plan­ ners had recognized the most likely German approach routes. Diederichs thereupon abandoned all previous calculations, and on 6 January 1902 requested information from Rebeur-Paschwitz in Washington regarding the defense works of Long Island. Diederichs was especially interested in Great Gull, Gardiner, Fisher, and Plum Islands. He further wanted to know if Block Island was fortified and if it was in the “American defense network.” The admiral bluntly asked the naval envoy for his opinion about a possible landing in Gardiner’s Bay, followed by a land attack on Brooklyn.68 The immediate outcome of this correspondence was an Admiralty Staff Denkschrift on 15 January 1902 recommending an assault on Puerto Rico, followed by a blockade of American Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico sea­ ports and eventual operations against the major trade centers in the northeast, especially Boston and New York. “Most effective would be a landing on Long Island (for example, in Gardiner’s Bay) and a joint ad­ vance by land and sea against Brooklyn and New York.” In case the German invading armada met defeat, it could easily withdraw to “San Juan de Portorico” or even to Germany.69 Still another memorandum from that year gave the first pronouncement concerning Germany’s political aims in the Caribbean. “Once in possession of Portorico we will never return it.”70 This renewed interest in combined army-navy operations against New York was reflected in the assignment of Winter arbeiten in 1901-1902. Diederichs ordered an evaluation of “the strategic and tactical value” of the United States Navy and the “military geography” of the United [